Texas Lawyer Blog

Newsmakers: Travis County Women Lawyers’ Association recognizes Ranelle Meroney

At its annual luncheon April 26, the Travis County Women Lawyers’ Association presented the Outstanding Achievement Award to Ranelle M. Meroney (pictured), of counsel at Chamberlain McHaney in Austin.

“I felt very honored by it and also very surprised,” Meroney says.

Meroney says she takes “a kind of blue collar” approach to her work and does what has to be done.

David Chamberlain, senior partner in Chamberlain McHaney, says that based on American Board of Trial Advocates statistics that he researched, Meroney is one of only two lawyers in Texas to have tried more than 100 civil cases to a conclusion and one of fewer than 10 women in the country to have reached the centennial mark.

Meroney says she has been first chair on more than 100 civil cases that she tried to verdict in courts of record. She is board certified in personal injury trial law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and says she defends clients in personal injury, property damage and construction cases, with a special emphasis on premises liability matters.

After graduating from the University of Texas School of Law in December 1979, she began her legal career at the former firm of Weller Whellus Green in Beaumont, Meroney says. She says she returned to Austin in 1986 to join the firm now known as Wright & Greenhill, where she became a shareholder in 1990.

Meroney says she joined Chamberlain McHaney in 2000.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

Newsmakers: BoyarMiller adds litigator in Houston

David Stockel (pictured) has joined BoyarMiller in Houston as an associate with the firm’s litigation group.

Stockel says he joined BoyarMiller in March from Schwartz, Junell, Greenberg & Oatout in Houston. After graduating from the University of Houston Law Center in 2004, he began his legal career at Legge, Farrow, Kimmitt, McGrath & Brown in Houston, Stockel says.

He represents clients in a wide range of commercial disputes.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

Newsmakers: Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr promotes four to shareholder, hires two new attorneys

Texas-based Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr has recently promoted four attorneys to shareholder in its Austin and Dallas offices and hired two new attorneys in Austin.

The new shareholders in Austin are Derek G. Flynn, Cara Kelly and Tracy McCreight. Mike Lee has become a shareholder in Dallas.

Flynn (pictured) says he joined Munsch Hardt in 2011 and focuses his practice on labor and employment law. He is a 2004 graduate of South Texas College of Law and previously served as a chief prosecutor for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, he says. He has experience representing individuals and companies in white-collar criminal and commercial fraud litigation and investigations, he says.

Kelly (pictured), a 2004 graduate of Fordham University School of Law, says that before joining Munsch Hardt in February 2010 she was an associate with Katten Muchin Rosenman and then in Dreir LLP in New York City. She says she focuses her practice on general commercial, breach of contract and bankruptcy litigation.

McCreight (pictured) says she joined Munsch Hardt in August 2012 and previously was a litigation associate with the New York City and Austin offices of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. She says she graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 2002 and during law school was an intern for then-3rd Court of Appeals Chief Justice Marilyn Aboussie. Her practice focuses on complex commercial litigation and arbitration.

Lee (pictured) says he joined Munsch Hardt in 2008 and serves as co-chairman of the firm’s Law School Recruiting Committee. Lee says he graduated summa cum laude from Texas Tech University School of Law in 2006 and started his legal career at Drew Darby and Associates in San Angelo. He says he is a litigator and handles business and oil and gas-related litigation and professional liability matters involving lawyers or firms.

Munsch Hardt’s two new attorneys in Austin are Cathleen C. Slack and Thomas “Champe” Fitzhugh IV.

Slack (pictured) says she joined Munsch Hardt from Austin’s Lloyd Gosselink Rochelle & Townsend, where she had chaired the business services and corporate and real estate practice groups. Slack says she also worked as an assistant attorney general in the transportation division at the Office of the Attorney General of Texas. She says she is a 2002 graduate of the University of Houston Law Center and is board certified in commercial real estate law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Her practice focuses on commercial real estate and corporate transactions, Slack says.

Fitzhugh (pictured) joined Munsch Hardt as a shareholder in the firm’s corporate and securities practice.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

Paula Hinton makes move to Winston & Strawn in Houston

Paula Hinton (pictured) joins Winston & Strawn this week as a litigation partner in Houston.

Hinton came from Vinson & Elkins, where she had practiced for the last 12 years (and eight years in an earlier stint.)

Hinton says she started watching Winston & Strawn after it moved into Houston in 2011 because of the strong reputation of the firm’s litigation practice. She says that after the firm contacted her in February, and she met with John Keville in Houston and a number of lawyers in the firm’s Chicago office, she was “blown away.”

“To be able to take my litigation practice to a firm like this that has this caliber of litigation from IP litigation to general advocacy is such an opportunity for me at this state of my career,” Hinton says.

Keville, managing partner of the Houston office, says Hinton is a great fit for the office because advocacy and trial work is Winston & Strawn’s “bread and butter.”

With Hinton, Winston & Strawn has 41 lawyers in Houston, Keville says.

Hinton says she didn’t discuss her move with clients, but says it’s widely known that BP is a client. She says she’s also done a lot of work for Shell Oil Co. Keville says both are current Winston & Strawn clients.

― Brenda Sapino Jeffreys

Dallas Association of Young Lawyers honors Winstead associate who founded nonprofit Girls Embracing Mothers Inc.

Dallas lawyer Brittany K. Byrd (pictured), an associate with Winstead who started a nonprofit that provides services to girls whose mothers are in prison, is the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers’ Outstanding Young Lawyer for 2013.

Byrd will receive the award at a luncheon May 3.

“It’s very humbling,” Byrd says of the award, which recognizes her service to the community and the legal profession.

Byrd serves as founder and chairwoman of the nonprofit she formed in 2009 while in law school, Girls Embracing Mothers Inc. (GEM). 

“It’s a nonprofit that I organized that caters to girls whose mothers are currently in prison,” she says.

Byrd says she was inspired to form GEM because her mother went to prison when Byrd was age 22.

“Being an adult I was greatly affected, so I just can’t imagine being 10 or being 13,” Byrd says of the time when her mother was in prison. (She says her mother has been released from prison and they have a good relationship.)

She says the goal of GEM is to show the girls “that there are other ways to live and how to become productive self-assured women.” 

She also spent hundreds of pro bono hours helping to secure sentence reductions for first-time, nonviolent drug offenders who have been sentenced to life in prison without parole. She is working with the American Civil Liberties Union on a report on life sentences without parole for first-time nonviolent offenders.

She says she gets “great joy” from what she does.

Sarah Rogers, a partner in Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons in Dallas who is president of the DAYL, says Byrd “really shines” in all three criteria for the Outstanding Young Lawyer award: professionalism, service to the community and service to the Bar.

“Not only did she found her own nonprofit, not only has she been an outstanding associate at her law firm, but she’s donated hundreds of hours to pro bono,” Rogers says. “She’s truly amazing.”

Byrd, a 2011 graduate of Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, practices in Winstead’s finance and banking practice group.

“I represent financial institutions in various commercial lending transactions,” she says.

While in law school, she interned with U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas of the Southern District of Texas in Houston and U.S. District Judge Renee Toliver of the Northern District in Dallas. She is a Winstead Juris Doctorate Scholarship recipient, which she says enabled her to go to work for Winstead after she graduated from law school.

— Brenda Sapino Jeffreys and Mary Alice Robbins

 Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

 

Newsmakers: Slack & Davis names new partner

Effective May 1, trial attorney Mark D. Pierce has become a partner in Slack & Davis in Austin.

Pierce, who graduated with honors from the University of Texas School of Law in December 1979, says he began his career in1980 at Passman & Jones in Dallas. In 1985, he moved his practice to El Paso, where he was a solo, Pierce says. He says he joined Slack & Davis as of counsel in 2008.

Pierce, a Federal Aviation Administration-certified commercial pilot and flight instructor, says he handles personal injury and wrongful death cases and also represents victims of airplane and helicopter crashes.

“Our firm is well known in the aviation world,” Pierce says.

He says he handles a lot of business litigation, including some that involves aviation.

But Pierce does not think of himself as only an aviation attorney. “I was a trial lawyer first and an aviation lawyer second,” he says.

He has been board certified in civil trial law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization since 1988.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

Newsmakers: Wick Phillips adds attorney to employment, commercial litigation practice groups

Michael L. Baum (pictured) has joined Wick Phillips in Dallas as a partner in the firm’s employment and commercial litigation groups.

Baum says he joined Wick Phillips from Munck Wilson & Mandala in Dallas, where he was a partner. He says that his trial practice focuses on employment and commercial litigation, and he handles, among other things, disputes arising out of non-competition agreements and claims involving breach of contract, tortious interference and theft of trade secrets.

Baum, a 1998 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, says he began his legal career at the firm now known as Schell Cooley.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

Texas February bar exam results released today

Almost 85 percent of the Texas law school graduates who sat for the Texas bar exam for the first time in February scored well enough to pass, according to the Texas Board of Law Examiners in Austin.

Of the 381 Texas law school graduates who were first-time test-takers, 323 (84.78 percent) passed, according to results released today by the Texas BLE. That pass rate is higher than the 76.57 percent, or 281 of 367, first-time test-takers who passed the February 2012 exam.

Baylor University School of Law in Waco barely squeaks by Texas Tech University School of Law in Lubbock for first place among Texas’s nine American Bar Association-accredited law schools in terms of the percentage of grads passing the February 2013 exam on their first try.

Forty-three of Baylor’s 45 first-time takers passed the exam for a pass rate of 94.56 percent, while 21 of Texas Tech’s 22 first-time takers passed the exam for a rate of 95.45 percent. An alphabetized list of those who passed the February 2013 exam can be found at http://ble.state.tx.us/Results/pass_0213.htm

Congratulations to all!

-- Jeanne Graham

Half-dozen Lone Star State law firms among tops for M&A in Q1

Six large Texas firms are among the leading firms for mergers-and-acquisitions work in Texas during the first quarter of 2013.

Activity during the quarter in Texas was 77.2 percent higher than during the first quarter of 2012, mergermarket reported May 1 in its Texas M&A Roundup: Q1 2013 report.

According to the report, 81 deals — in which a Texas company is the target — valued at $36.2 billion were announced during the quarter. The numbers include deals valued at a minimum of $5 million.

Vinson & Elkins leads the Legal Advisor League Table by Deal Count with 16 deals valued at $14.4 billion during the quarter. Others on the league table are:

• Andrews Kurth in third place with 11 deals valued at $3.3 billion;
• Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in fourth place with 10 deals valued at $7.4 billion;
• Bracewell & Giuliani in sixth place with seven deals valued at $9.4 billion;
• Locke Lord in seventh place with six deals valued at $6.7 billion;
• and Baker Botts in 12th place with four deals valued at $3.7 billion.

Weil Gotshal & Manges of New York led the Legal Advisor League Table by Value, with four deals valued at $29.3 billion.

The largest Texas deal announced during the quarter is Dell Inc.’s proposed leveraged buyout for more than $20 billion, mergermarket reports.

In an earlier report, three Texas firms are among those doing the most M&A work in the Americas during the first quarter.

-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys

Newsmakers: K. Nicole Voyles becomes partner in Jenkins & Kamin

Houston’s Jenkins & Kamin announced April 29 the promotion of K. Nicole Voyles as a partner in the family law firm.

Voyles (pictured) says she joined Jenkins & Kamin in March 2009 after working first as an associate and then as a partner to Dallas family law attorney Brian L. Webb.

Before becoming a family law lawyer, her practice had focused on business and insurance defense, Voyles says. She says that after receiving her J.D. from Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law in 2003, she worked for Brown Pruitt Peterson Wambsganss Ferrill & Dean in Fort Worth and then for Gibson, McClure, Wallace & Daniels in Dallas.

“After two years, I decided I could no longer do insurance defense and jumped in family law,” Voyles says. “Family law is a lot more exciting.”

Voyles says she is board certified in family law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.