© 2018 The Texas Lawbook.
Finalist: Outstanding Legal Dept. for Public Service and Pro Bono
By Mark Curriden
(Jan. 24) – The corporate legal department at Vistra Energy has been busy the past couple years.
First, there was that whole $45 billion bankruptcy thing that went on for three years when it was part of its former parent Energy Future Holdings. Then there was the spin-off of Luminant and TXU Energy and the formation of Vistra, which was its own $20 billion transaction. The entire company moved offices from downtown to Irving. And finally, in October, Vistra announced that it is buying Houston-based Dynegy for $1.7 billion.
With all that going on, the reasonable expectation would be that in-house lawyers at Vistra might put pro bono and community service on the backburner for a period.
In fact, the opposite appears true.
Led by Vistra Associate General Counsel Dan Kelly and Corporate Counsel Ashlie Alaman, the Vistra legal department devoted just as many pro bono hours, raised even more money for public service efforts and tackled more community outreach projects than ever before.
“Community service and giving back is a core of our company and our department,” Kelly says.
Alaman, who was recently appointed pro bono director at Vistra, agrees. “Pretty much everyone in the legal department serves on a non-profit board or is involved in a public service or pro bono project,” she says.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named the Vistra legal department, led by Kelly and Alaman, as a finalist for the 2017 Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award for Public Service and Pro Bono. The finalists will be honored — and winners revealed — in a ceremony at the Bush Institute on Jan. 25.
Kelly and Alaman point to Vistra’s most important and highest impact community outreach effort called TXU Energy Aid, which annually waives millions of dollars in electric charges for Texans facing severe financial difficulties.
“Despite the fact that we only operate in Texas, Energy Aid is the largest electric bill forgiveness program in the U.S.,” Kelly says.
Vistra’s legal department, which has 15 in-house lawyers, regularly provides free representation to low-income North Texans through the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program and raises hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for the annual Dallas Bar Association’s Equal Access to Justice Fund.
Probably one of the coolest public service outreaches by a legal department is Vistra’s partnership with the Young Women’s Preparatory Network, a non-profit that provides teenaged girls at inner-city high schools with direct access to professionals in various business sectors.
“YWPN is a network of all girls’ schools located throughout the state, including three in the Metroplex (Irma Rangel in Fair Park, Young Women’s Leadership Academy in Ft. Worth, and the Young Women’s Leadership Academy at Bill Arnold in Grand Prairie),” Alaman says. “The goal is to prepare these young women to be leaders.
“Our goal for the partnership is to expose the young women to science and the energy industry,” she says. “Energy is typically a male-oriented industry, but we are able to show these young women that this field is open to them.”
Alaman says Vistra plans to give students in the YWPN day-long tours of the company’s operating coal and gas plants, which will give students the opportunity to learn about jobs in energy, environment and engineering.
“Similar to the plant tours, we’d like to show the girls what an operating mine looks like, followed up by showing them how we reclaim the land once mining is complete,” she says.
Vistra also plans to hire a student from the YWPN to be a summer intern this summer.
Alaman and Kelly say Vistra also supports and encourages its lawyers to get involved in their own pro bono or public service efforts.
For example, Alaman spent a significant amount of time in 2016 working with the Clemency Project, which was tasked with helping federal inmates seek a reduction of their sentences based on changes in the sentencing guidelines.
“Through her efforts, Ashlie secured the early release of one of her clients, allowing him the opportunity to re-join his family and society and re-gain his life,” said Kimberly-Clark Assistant GC Chasity Henry.
Henry points out that Alaman spends two days a week working with the non-profit Gateway of Grace to teach English to a refugee family. She also worked with the Human Rights Initiative to provide pro bono legal assistance to two immigrants seeking to escape abusive spouses and attain United States citizenship.
For his part, Kelly serves as vice-chair of the $1 million annual campaign for the DBA’s Equal Access to Justice.
“Dan rolls up his sleeves and gets into the actual in-person service,” says Michael Hurst, who is a partner at Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst. “Dan has led by example. Dan spearheaded efforts for his team to be involved with the guardianship project of Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.”
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