The Driving Diversity in Law & Leadership [Virtual Summit]: Dallas

Amanda is a litigator predominately focused on product liability, trucking & transportation, and premises liability. Her experience includes handling the initial investigation of significant incidents and representing clients in state court and through arbitration. Amanda’s product liability practice focuses on the design of various parts of trucks, while her trucking & transportation practice ranges from minor vehicle accidents to multi-fatality collisions. The majority of her premises liability matters concern slip and fall accidents and assaults. Amanda enjoys taking the time to learn about the specific needs and priorities of clients, whether this includes resolving cases through favorable settlements or representing clients through trial.

Amanda routinely advises clients on compliance with regulations, legal strategy in pending lawsuits, and mitigating against risk for future litigation. Her accomplishments include successfully preparing and arguing motions for summary judgment in state and federal courts and co-chairing an important trial victory. She presented “The Changing Face of Spoliation in Texas,” co-presented “Your First Petition: Essential, but Untaught Basics,” and was published in the bi-annual compendium for ALFA International regarding statewide updates for construction law. DRI’s For The Defense also published her in-depth article, “Spoliation: Remedies in Manufacturing-Defect Cases Without the Key Product.”

Amanda earned her J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. While attending law school, she tried her first two trials, earned the Mithoff Pro Bono Award, and interned for the Honorable Judge Martin Hoffman. Amanda received her bachelor’s degree in Public Relations at the University of Texas at Austin.

Crystal Woods has a diverse legal practice involving labor and employment and complex commercial litigation, with a primary focus on litigating disputes and counseling on matters implicating trade secrets, restrictive covenants and fiduciary duties.

She has successfully represented clients in a range of disputes before state and federal courts, administrative agencies and arbitration panels, including disputes involving enforcement of employment agreements and restrictive covenants; workplace discrimination, retaliation and harassment; wage-and-hour class and collective actions; and a variety of tort and complex contractual matters. She has significant experience defending and prosecuting high-stakes claims involving business entity separations, executive departures, and the usurpation of corporate opportunities by former high-level employees – cases that often require emergency injunctive relief. Her background in the fiduciary duty arena also includes conducting internal investigations, assisting clients in civil and criminal matters before regulatory bodies and defending shareholder derivative actions.

Crystal regularly advises companies on employment aspects of significant business transactions, including overseeing due diligence of a target’s employment practices and counseling on executive employment, separation and restrictive covenant agreements. She also counsels employers on compliance with federal, state and local employment laws and regulations, and on litigation avoidance measures.

Sakina Rasheed Foster is a partner in the Finance Practice Group of Haynes and Boone, LLP. Her practice focuses on the representation of borrowers and financial institutions in complex commercial loan transactions as well as airlines and aviation matters.

Sakina is deeply committed to the North Texas community and has served in leadership positions with the Dallas Asian American Bar Association, Texas Women’s Foundation, Texas Lawyers Assistance Program, Dallas Bar Foundation and Equal Access to Justice Campaign.

Meyling “Mey” Ly Ortiz is an award-winning Managing Counsel of Employment & Labor at Toyota Motor North America. Her passions include mentoring and championing diversity and inclusion. At home, she’s doing her best to be a “fun” mom to three littles and to work on her passion project, a personal blog: TheMeybe.com. You can follow her on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/meybe/). And you knew this was coming: her opinions are hers alone.

Tanya L. Boyle advises investment companies, including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), interval funds, closed-end funds, and other financial services industry clients on the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and FINRA regulations.

Tanya’s representation of investment companies has included advice on formation and continued operations, including exemptive relief from the SEC in connection with various matters arising under the Investment Company Act of 1940. She also has experience on a breadth of transactions, including mutual fund reorganizations and mergers and hedge fund conversions to mutual funds and has advised on a broad range of investments, including derivative products and other alternative investments.

Tanya also counsels investment company boards of directors, private funds, and investment advisers. She advises on structuring, formation and continued operations both to domestic and offshore private investment vehicles, including hedge funds and private equity funds, among others.

Tanya’s in-house experience includes serving as lead counsel for registration matters for a large investment management, insurance products, and financial services company with more than 160 registered mutual funds and $49 billion in assets under management.

Michelle Carey Jones is an Associate General Counsel in the Global Transactions and Compliance group for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in Ft. Worth, Texas.   In this role, Michelle provides legal support for international transactions and legal compliance.  Prior to joining Lockheed Martin in 2018, Michelle served as General Counsel for Wells Fargo Rail Corporation, an $8 billion railcar leasing company, NCH Marketing Services, Inc., an international coupon clearing and settlement company of over $4 billion in coupons annually, and Trinity Rail Group, Inc., a $2 billion international railcar manufacturing and leasing company.  Michelle has a law firm background as an international commercial and employment litigator at Donovan, Leisure and Orrick.   Michelle was a Phi Beta Kappa and received her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and B.A. in Economics/Business from UCLA.  Michelle is involved in various charities, including Attorneys Serving the Community and Taste Community Project.  Michelle is married to a Welsh rock climber and engineer, Peter Jones, and has two children, Kailey and Will, as well as her rescue dog, Sierra.  She enjoys hiking, working out, travelling, food and wine and reading.   

Meghan has over 15 years of experience as an entertainment, media, sports and marketing attorney and has worked for name brands such as the National Football League, Universal Studios, and Match Group.  She has worked on transactions ranging from the creation of Harry Potter World, to the Super Bowl and implementing the new NFL officiating instant replay system.  Meghan currently is responsible for marketing and advertising deals related to the promotion of various dating apps including Match, Hinge, OkCupid, PlentyofFish and more!  She serves on the board of the Sports Section of the American Bar Association and dedicates her spare time to children’s literacy causes.

Debera W. Hepburn, Esq., is a Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Goldman Sachs, focusing on Intellectual Property.  Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Debera was an attorney at JC Penney (where she focused on Corporate Compliance and Intellectual Property), FTS International (where she focused on Corporate Compliance and Intellectual Property), and the law firm of Sidley Austin (where she focused on litigation and transactional Intellectual Property).  She received her law degree from the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University.  Before then, she worked as a finance analyst at Frito Lay after earning her MBA from the University of Notre Dame and as a products research and development engineer at Procter & Gamble after earning her Chemical Engineering degree from Purdue University.  Debera has been active in various organizations, including the Board of Directors of the Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel, the Honorable Barbara M.G. Lynn Inn of Court for Intellectual Property attorneys, the NEW Roundtable, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, alumni clubs at her alma maters, and various veteran legal aid clinics.

Brooke has over 20 years of experience helping companies through high-urgency regulatory investigations and the complexities of financial and accounting processes and controls improvement, concurrently identifying areas for cost reduction and increased compliance. Brooke has led and reported on multiple matters involving the U.S. Department of Justice, SEC, and FBI. She is an expert in project management, process improvement, controls integration, forensic accounting investigation, compliance remediation, and intellectual property litigation matters. With professional certifications in compliance, fraud, money laundering, valuation, and forensic analytics, Brooke offers her clients innovative solutions through automation and analytics while considering their business models and operational strategies. She has published multiple articles and been a speaker on topics of corporate compliance and governance, and the FCPA. She holds a B.S. in Finance with Honors from Virginia Tech.

John Henrich has been General Counsel and Secretary of Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. since June 2019. Mr. Henrich has held various senior level positions with the Sally since January 2012. Prior to joining the Sally, Mr. Henrich was Senior Counsel at Accor Hospitality. Mr. Henrich received his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and his B.A. from Columbia University in the City of New York.

Percy Freeman Jr. joined SRS Distribution as the Diversity and Inclusion Program Manager in 2021. At SRS, Percy is driving change with allies across a rapidly growing company focused on being better today than they were yesterday. 

Prior to SRS, Percy worked in the financial services industry for 15 years. For the majority of those years, he worked as a licensed investment advisor. However, Percy’s passion for people and desire to create large-scale change led him to human resources, where he served as a diversity, equity, and inclusion leader. Percy specialized in talent management, organizational development, training, recruiting, and performance management to create positive organizational change. Percy has successfully developed and implemented strategic diversity initiatives that improve workforce diversity and awareness, thereby creating an inclusive environment.

If you ask Percy, he will tell that his entire world revolves around the two P’s! Percy(6) and Penelope(2) are his true north. He hopes to instill the best in them, provide the best for them, and ensure they are New Orleans Saints fans! Percy is quite proud of being from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Eric is a Technology executive with expertise in general management, customer programs delivery, sales and business development. He is experienced in creating strategies within multi-national companies and implementing with specific core competencies and operational excellence. Eric specializes in organizational and people development, increasing profitability, cost containment and managing growth in complex environments and emerging markets. Eric currently serves as Genesys’ Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion officer and formerly led Genesys’ Global Professional Services organization delivering over $1BUS in worldwide software solutions.

Prior to his current role, Eric served in multiple leadership roles at Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson, including the Program Executive of the largest global customer for Alcatel-Lucent’s Enterprise Business Group and the Vice President of Ericsson’s transformation office driving the company’s transition to Agile software delivery methods.

Eric co-founded, led and sat on the board of three different non-profit organizations across various Dallas-Fort Worth communities. These non-profits focused on the mentoring of African-American males ages 12-18 residing in underserved cities. The organizations also support various community-based activities including Habitat for Humanity, the American Red Cross, the Collin County Boys & Girls Club and scholarship fund-raising for local high-school graduating seniors. Eric also supported the founding of the Collin County branch of the NAACP and remains an active member.

While at Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson, Eric led and co-founded both companies’ African-American employee resource groups (ERG).  The ERGs brought a central leadership focus on the challenges unique to African-Americans in the corporate environment, highlighting challenges with the recruitment and promoting of African-American talent. Through the ERG groups, partnerships were forged with the business leaders, talent management and talent acquisition groups to establish new recruitment pipelines and more focus on the talent development of the African-American employee base. The partnerships helped forge relationships with Historically Black Colleges & Universities for recruitment and a version of the “Rooney Rule” as part of the selection process for appointing executive roles at Ericsson.

He holds a bachelor’s in Business and a master’s degree in Business Administration. He has been married to his wife Sherasa for 24 years. He and Sherasa have two children: their daughter Zharia, a graduate of Spelman College and their son Miles who is a Junior at Howard University. Eric enjoys music, physical training, spending time with his family and close friends and giving back to the community through volunteer activities.

Jennifer DeBoy is a native Texan. She graduated with honors from the University of Texas at Dallas and went on to study law at Southern Methodist University. She focused her studies on international tax, consumer, and intellectual property law. She also clerked at a mid-size international tax firm, a boutique estate planning firm, and the Federal Trade Commission while in law school. She went straight in-house at Copart, Inc., the top performer on Deloitte’s Exceptional 100 Companies list. She then worked at EZCORP, Inc. as Associate General Counsel. She gained omni-channel experience at KidKraft, Inc. and is now at Analog Devices. She has two young children who make her laugh (or sometimes cry) and when time permits, she travels with her husband or sneaks in an early morning run.  

Skyla Banks is Senior Commercial Counsel at Amplitude, Inc, a technology company that provides a data analytics SaaS solution that helps their customers build better products.  Over her near a decade tenure as a technology lawyer, Skyla has enjoyed a diverse practice of technology, data privacy and security, intellectual property, and commercial negotiations.

Before practicing law, she earned her B.A. in Economics from Howard University and a J.D. from Southern University Law Center, where she served as Executive Editor of the Journal of Race, Gender and Poverty.  Following law school, Skyla began practicing in the cyber security industry where was in-house counsel for various technology companies.  

Skyla contributes a substantial amount of time advising business clients on the risks associated with technology and ever-changing data privacy laws.  She has written multiple articles on data privacy concerns, specifically the impact of cross border data transfers on businesses, and the impact of the GDPR on day-to-day business operations.  She also advises non-profit organizations in Dallas focused on educating and developing girls of color within the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolis.  Skyla is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and enjoys serving as a change agent to change the narrative of Black women in technology

Kim brings more than 13 years of competition and anti-corruption compliance expertise in global businesses across industries, including several years of international operations experience in Asia and Europe.  She has a proven track record of managing and defending complex legal and compliance matters spanning several geographies, advocating in front of regulators around the globe, implementing risk mitigation strategies throughout functions and businesses, leading and building legal and compliance teams, and driving solutions in partnership with the business. 

Kim currently leads the Kimberly-Clark Global Competition and Anti-Corruption Compliance programs and partners with leaders at all levels of the organization to ensure compliance with global laws and regulations. Prior to her role at Kimberly-Clark, Kim was the Assistant General Counsel – Compliance at A. O. Smith Corporation, a Fortune 500 water heater manufacturing leader, where she built and lead the global ethics and compliance program. Prior to A. O. Smith Corporation, Kim was an established competition lawyer at Howrey, LLP, and later on Baker Botts, LLP, in Washington, D.C.   

Kim holds a Masters in Business Administration and a Juris Doctorate from West Virginia University, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan. 

Kavita Bhalla is Counsel for Allstate Insurance Company, where she works on the Insurance Operations Team. She supports the enterprise on legal matters pertaining to Independent Agents, the Call Centers and the Southwest states. Prior to working in-house, Kavita litigated for a private firm, and then for Allstate. Kavita obtained her bachelor’s at St. Mary’s University, where she went on to complete her JD and MPA degrees.

Mehgan Wichuk has steadily amassed legal skills and an in-depth understanding of the oil industry while working her way up the ranks as in-house counsel for some the largest and most well-known companies in the field.

Utilizing the in-the-trenches legal experience she gained during her early years in private practice, Wichuk went on to serve as GeoMarket Attorney for Schlumberger Technology Corporation. As one of only two attorneys responsible for the United States, Wichuk played a critical role in shaping the policies and procedures in the GeoMarket. 

Following this experience, Wichuk went on to serve as Corporate Counsel for Global Geophysical Services, Inc., where she was the senior attorney responsible for worldwide seismic acquisition and processing operations totaling over $350 million in annual revenue.

Wichuk then served as Senior Division Counsel for Trican Well Service where she managed legal risk for the U.S. division of Trican.  In addition to negotiating critical agreements and managing domestic litigation, she also oversaw and coordinated Trican’s $200 million sale of its U.S. assets in 2016.

Following the sale, Wichuk served as General Counsel for Seadrill Americas, a world leader in offshore drilling. Wichuk was then recruited as the General Counsel and CCO for Gyrodata Incorporated, an industry-leader in wellbore placement technology.  It was in this role Wichuk expanded her skill set by managing all legal and compliance matters globally for Gyrodata, a company with operations in nearly 40 countries.

Wichuk can draw upon her significant experience in litigation, contracts, employment law, compliance matters and corporate governance – all of which she will use in her current, and most impressive, role as SVP, General Counsel and CCO for Trillium Flow Technologies, a designer and manufacture of valves and pumps for power, oil & gas and industrial sectors. 

Lucy Gustavus is Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Mortgage Operations at PennyMac Financial Services, Inc. and has over 23 years of experience in the mortgage industry. At PennyMac, Lucy provides legal support to the Servicing Division and is a member of the company’s wEMRG women’s mentoring and leadership program.

Prior to joining PennyMac in 2018, Lucy worked at Mr. Cooper as Vice President and Associate General Counsel, where she supported mortgage servicing and fair lending and actively participated on its Diversity and Inclusion’s Committee. Prior to that, Lucy was Senior Compliance Officer of Fair Lending and Privacy at Citi, where she also assisted with winding down the US operations of Mexican affiliate Banamex. She joined Citi from Bank of America, where Lucy was Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel and provided default servicing support for over six years during the height of the financial crisis, having joined the Bank through its merger with Countrywide Financial where she also supported default servicing.

Lucy began her career in the industry as a law clerk and associate attorney at Wilson and Associates, PLLC in Little Rock, Arkansas representing a multitude of mortgage servicing shops in contested foreclosures, evictions and bankruptcies. Lucy received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and is licensed to practice law in Texas and Arkansas. Having attended and graduated from the first desegregated school in the south – Little Rock Central High School – Lucy has always known and directly understood importance of inclusion and belonging. 

Melodie Craft is a VP of Legal Affairs & Risk Management and Corporate Secretary at for a publicly traded national portfolio company. In addition to her J.D. she has a Masters in Human Resources,  Certificate in Strategic Decision Making and Risk Management from Stanford and a Certificate in Global Business through Yale.  Prior to moving in-house, Melodie worked for large national law firms for 20+ years and was last an equity partner at a large national firm out of its Dallas, TX office.  Diversity is a long-time area that Melodie has enjoyed working in—she has previously spoken at national diversity conferences,  conducted extensive diversity trainings and advises companies on their diversity programs, served on diversity committees for local civic organizations, and is currently on the Diversity Committee for the National Association of Women Lawyers as well as the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Committee for the Corporate Counsel Section of the State Bar of Texas.

Courteney Harris is the Assistant Dean for Career and Professional Development for the UNT Dallas College of Law. She is a second career attorney. Immediately following her undergraduate education, she worked as a Legislative Assistant in the Texas House of Representatives. Courteney practiced law for 10 years. As an Assistant Attorney General, she worked in the Child Support Enforcement Division of the Texas Attorney General’s Office. Subsequent to that experience, she worked as a Tax Attorney for a Texas school district. Courteney recognizes the value of leadership development and building relationships. Since relocating from Houston to Dallas to open UNT Dallas College of Law, she has been a member of the Dallas Bar Association, completed the Dallas Regional Chamber’s Leadership Dallas program and participated in other leadership and relationship development programs and committees. 

In her work as both a committee member and current co-chair of the State Bar of Texas – Texas Minority Council Program (“TMCP”), she has developed professional relationships with attorneys throughout Texas. Her multifaceted pre- and post- attorney professional experiences allowed Courteney to develop summer legal experiences for law students and post graduate employment opportunities for alumni. 

Courteney graduated from Xavier University of New Orleans with a B.A. in English. She earned her M.P.A. and J.D. from Texas Southern University.

Allyson N. Ho is a partner in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and co-chair of the Firm’s nationwide Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group.

Mrs. Ho is widely regarded as one of the nation’s most accomplished appellate litigators. She has presented over 60 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide, including multiple high-stakes cases on behalf of business before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Her most significant winning arguments include a U.S. Supreme Court reversal worth billions of dollars for unionized employers in the Sixth Circuit; a U.S. Supreme Court reversal limiting the power of federal regulators; a multi-billion dollar environmental win in the Fifth Circuit; a multi-billion dollar commercial victory for the founder of a technology company in the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court; a billion dollar environmental win in the Houston Court of Appeals; a nine-figure commercial victory in the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals; and a nine-figure arbitration win in the Fifth Circuit.

Among her numerous accolades, Chambers has named her one of the nation’s top appellate lawyers every year for the past nine consecutive years (2012-20)—a record unmatched by (and far exceeding) any other appellate litigator in Texas. She is also routinely named as a leading appellate lawyer by Benchmark, The Best Lawyers in America®, The Legal 500, Texas Super Lawyers, and D Magazine.

Mrs. Ho has also received the Gregory S. Coleman Outstanding Appellate Lawyer Award (Texas Bar Foundation, June 22, 2018), been named a “Distinguished Leader” (Texas Lawyer, Sep. 1, 2017) and “Appellate MVP” (Law360, Nov. 23, 2015), and been recognized on the “Appellate Hot List” (National Law Journal, Nov. 16, 2015). In addition, she has been profiled in “Litigators of the Week” (The American Lawyer, May 8, 2020), “Litigation Powerhouse” (Law360, Aug. 10, 2016), “Supreme Court Insider” (National Law Journal, July 21, 2016), “Supreme Court Specialists, Mostly Male, Dominated Arguments This Term” (National Law Journal, May 11, 2016), “Attorney of the Year Finalist” (Texas Lawyer, Nov. 2, 2015), “Litigation Department of the Year” (Texas Lawyer, June 1, 2015), “Employment Group of the Year” (Law360, Jan. 13, 2015), “A Supreme Month: Lawyer Credits Preparedness in Ability to Argue Two U.S. High Court Cases in Three Weeks” (Texas Lawyer, Dec. 8, 2014), “High Court Debuts for Two Lawyers” (National Law Journal, Nov. 3, 2014), “Women in Business Awards” (Dallas Business Journal, Aug 29, 2014), “Litigation Departments of the Year” (Texas Lawyer, June 2, 2014), “Winning Women” (Texas Lawyer, Aug. 22, 2011), and “High court practitioners: increasingly diverse” (National Law Journal, June 6, 2011).

Jennifer Trulock counsels companies on how to manage workplace legal issues, conduct investigations into employee misconduct, and prevent employment lawsuits. She also is experienced in handling acquisition/divestiture employment issues, including due diligence, pre-merger planning, and post-merger integration issues.

Ms. Trulock advises employers on developing and applying personnel policies and in responding to and resolving complaints before reaching litigation. In addition, she assists employers in protecting their business information by writing, implementing and enforcing non-competition and non-disclosure agreements.

Ms. Trulock defends employers against claims of discrimination and harassment based on sex, race, disability, religion, age and national origin; wrongful discharge; wage and hour violations; breach of contract; breach of covenants not to compete; misappropriation of trade secrets; breach of fiduciary duty; and retaliation. She represents clients in administrative proceedings and helps companies respond effectively to charges of discrimination filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and charges of unfair labor practice filed with the National Labor Relations Board.

Ms. Trulock is experienced in developing affirmative action plans for employers who are federal contractors and in responding to compliance reviews by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

Ashley is Assistant Vice President & Associate In-House Counsel at Methodist Health System. She earned her undergraduate degree from Rice University and her law degree from SMU Dedman School of Law.  Having a strong desire to go in-house right out of law school, during law school, Ashley interned with 7 different in-house departments before going in-house. In her spare time, Ashley enjoys committing her time to mentoring law school students and promoting diversity and inclusion initiatives through various organizations like the Diversity Attorney Pipeline Program and the Dallas Asian American Bar Association, where she currently serves as Secretary and has previously served as various Committee chairs.  Outside of DAABA, Ashley enjoys snowboarding, wedding coordinating, and traveling (which because of the pandemic has been replaced with lots of baking of random desserts and gaining quarantine-15).

Kara Altenbaumer-Price is a securities litigator turned executive risk insurance broker. After seven years practicing law at Hughes & Luce and Andrews Kurth in Dallas, Kara decided to take a short detour to the world of executive risk consulting and insurance while she expanded her family. That detour has now lasted more than a decade and become a new career. After leaving law practice, she spent almost ten years at USI Southwest where she led the Executive & Professional Services practice. As team lead, she personally handled many of the group’s more-challenging clients, such as those with tough balance sheets, claims history, new IPOs, and hard-to-place industry classes. In late 2019, on the eve of a worldwide pandemic that forced everyone to resort to videoconferencing, she decided to enter into sales, joining insurance broker McGriff as a producer. Between her insurance brokerage career and prior legal practice, she has developed a unique expertise in management liability insurance with a keen understanding of how to marry coverage terms with how management liability insurance ultimately gets utilized by companies. She is cum laude graduate of The University of Texas at Austin and a summa cum laude graduate of Texas Tech School of Law.  Kara offices in Dallas.

Andrea M. Palmer is the Vice President, Legal & Compliance at Higginbotham in Fort Worth, Texas. Andrea graduated with a B.A. in history from the University of Texas and cum laude from Baylor School of Law, which she attended on a full academic scholarship.

After law school, Andrea spent five years litigating with the law firm of Anderson & Riddle, LLP, in Fort Worth, Texas. Andrea represented pilots, manufacturers, MROs/FBOs, and common carriers in state and federal court throughout the United States. In 2018, Andrea joined Higginbotham, where she serves a dual role. Andrea provides in-house legal services to Higginbotham, as well as contract review, coverage analysis, and escalated claims handling to the firm’s clients, in addition to overseeing all aviation matters.

Melissa is the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Partner, and represents clients in professional liability, product liability, employment, personal injury, commercial litigation and premises liability matters. She defends drug and medical device manufacturers, automotive manufacturers, and heavy equipment manufacturers. She has extensive experience representing a broad spectrum of industries and clients in attorney- client disputes, business and employment disputes, personal injury cases, and product defect cases. Melissa has gained extensive first- chair trial experience over her 25 years of practice, and has tried cases all over Texas and beyond. She has always been a champion of retaining and promoting women in law, and is spearheading the firm’s diversity and inclusion program by focusing the firm’s efforts on hiring, training, and retention initiatives.