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Energy Transfer, KBR, LyondellBasell, Plains All American & P66 win top 2026 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards. The Association of Corporate Counsel's Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook announced Monday the recipients of the 2026 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards for Business Litigation of the Year, M&A Transaction of the Year, Creative Partnership, Corporate Legal Department of the Year, Lifetime Achievement and Rookie of the Year. ACC-Houston and The Lawbook disclosed the GCs of the Year, Senior Counsel of the Year, Harry Reasoner Pro Bono Advocacy and Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion honorees last week. The annual Houston Corporate Counsel Awards recognize the successes of the corporate in-house legal community. The Houston Corporate Counsel Awards celebrate the exceptional legal talent driving business success across its city, honoring the in-house counsel who work tirelessly behind the scenes to protect and advance the companies and communities that make Houston thrive," said ACC Houston President Emily K. Shields. "When accomplished lawyers take time to nominate a peer, it speaks volumes about the standard of excellence this recognition represents." The Lawbook and ACC Houston received more than 80 nominations. A dozen past Houston Corporate Counsel Award recipients served as judges, reviewing the nominations and selecting the winners. The awards recognize the extraordinary successes of corporate in-house counsel during the past 12 to 18 months. For the 2026 awards, ACC Houston and The Lawbook are honoring about two-dozen general counsel and senior in-house counsel from 15 different companies in 17 different categories. ACC Houston and The Lawbook have partnered on the Houston Corporate Counsel Awards since 2019. The 2026 awards ceremony will be May 28 at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Houston. "ACC Houston is proud to partner with The Texas Lawbook on the Corporate Counsel Awards to honor the exceptional legal work and leadership of in-house counsel throughout the Greater Houston area," said Exxon Mobil Senior Counsel Latasha McDade, who serves as membership chair of ACC Houston. "The award winners are truly deserving of this recognition, and ACC Houston is delighted to celebrate them on this special occasion." The 2026 Houston Corporate Counsel Award recipients include: * Lifetime Achievement goes to Plains All American GC Richard McGee, who was nominated by Vinson & Elkins partner Nettie Downs. * Rookie of the Year is being awarded toCastleton Commodities International Counsel Helen Xiang, who was nominated by Sidley Austin partner Irv Rotter. * Corporate Legal Department of the Year honors go toLyondellBasell and its General Counsel Jeff Kaplan. AZA partners Kyle Poelker and Todd Mensing nominated LyondellBasell for the award. * Legal Innovation/Creative Partnership award is being given to Phillips 66 GC Vanessa Sutherland, who was nominated by Phillips 66 Legal Operations Director Michael Voutsinas. * Business Litigation of the Year, which honors both in-house and outside lawyers, will be awarded to two different recipients: Energy Transfer Assistant GC Ali Henderson and her team at ET, who were nominated by Yetter Coleman partners Paul Yetter and Bryce Callahan and by Gibson Dunn partner Collin Cox; and to KBR Senior Counsel Kriste Sullivan, who was nominated by Bracewell partner Warren Harris. * M&A Transaction of the Year is going to Cactus GC Will Marsh, who was nominated by Norton Rose Fulbright partner Stephanie Schoepfer. * General Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department (21-plus lawyers) goes to Siemens Energy GC Denise Hansen, who was nominated by Reed Smith partner Francisco Rivero. * GC of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department (six to 20 attorneys) is being awarded to Fertitta Entertainment General Counsel Steven Scheinthal, who was nominated by AZA partner John Zavitsanos. * General Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department (two to five lawyers) goes to Energy & Minerals Group GC Laura Tyson. A&O Shearman partner Bill Nelson and Sidley Austin partner Herschel Hamner nominated Tyson for the award. * GC of the Year for a Solo Legal Department will go to The Lactation Network General Counsel Wendy Wright, who was nominated by Jackson Walker partner Cheryl Camin Murray. * General Counsel of the Year for a Nonprofit or Governmental Agency goes to Rice University GC Omar Syed, who was nominated by Bracewell partner Alamdar Hamdani. * Senior Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department is being awarded to two lawyers - ConocoPhillips Senior Litigation Counsel Scott Kelly, who was nominated by AZA partner Tim Shelby and Shipley Snell principal George Shipley, and Exxon Mobil Managing Counsel David Kern, who was nominated by Gibson Dunn partner David Woodcock. * Senior Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department also goes to two Houston attorneys - Mitsubishi Americas Senior Counsel Megumi Ryoya, who was nominated by Vinson & Elkins partner Shay Kuperman, and Enerflex Senior Counsel Melanie Benefield, who was nominated by AZA partners Todd Mensing and Jason McManis. * Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department goes to Deep Blue Deputy GC Ali Denson. O'Melveny & Myers Counsel Brandon Duke nominated Denson. * Senior Counsel of the Year for a Nonprofit or Governmental Agency is being awarded to Houston Methodist Hospital Labor and Employment Legal Counsel Marissa Marquez, who was nominated by Jackson Walker partner Sang Shin. * Harry Reasoner Pro Bono Advocacy Award goes to LyondellBasell Lead Counsel Dave Louie, who was nominated by Vinson & Elkins partner Quentin Smith, and Shell USA Senior Litigation Counsel Sara Keith, who was nominated by Porter Hedges associate Joanna Caytas. * Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion is being awarded to Shell USA Senior Counsel Cisselon Nichols Hurd, who was nominated by Shell Legal Counsel Ryan Boutet. Texas Lawbook publisher Brooks Igo said the 2026 award recipients "represent the best of the best and demonstrate the great value that Houston in-house counsel add to their company's leadership and objectives." "This year's candidates continue to raise the bar of what in-house counsel success looks like," Igo said. "The Lawbook will publish in-depth profiles of each of the award winners over the next six weeks." Mark Curriden is a lawyer/journalist and founder of The Texas Lawbook. In addition, he is a contributing legal correspondent for The Dallas Morning News. (C) 2026 The Texas Lawbook. Content of The Texas Lawbook is controlled and protected by specific licensing agreements with its subscribers and under federal copyright laws. Any distribution of this content without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.

The best energy stock to invest $1,000 in right now. Jack Delaney, The Motley Fool A critical component of the search for worthwhile, long-term investments is understanding the market forces shaping the world. In the energy markets, the increasing demands of artificial intelligence (AI) workloads are driving the need for electricity-hungry data centers to find reliable power sources. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Its team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue" That demand is only going to increase. The market researchers at Fortune Business Insights forecast that the global data center market will jump in value from roughly $300 billion in 2026 to around $699 billion by 2034. One company that is already capitalizing on that growing market is Energy Transfer LP (NYSE: ET). The data center catalyst. Energy Transfer is a midstream operator with over 140,000 miles of pipeline and associated energy infrastructure. It transports and stores crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs) before they are refined. Last year, the company inked a large agreement with Oracle to supply natural gas to three U.S. data centers. It also has an agreement with CloudBurst Data Centers to provide natural gas to its data center development in Texas, as well as a similar agreement with Fermi America to supply its AI campus. As those projects get up and running, they will demonstrate to other tech companies that Energy Transfer can be a reliable partner. The power of diversification. Data centers are a growth opportunity for energy industry players, but there are other reasons to like Energy Transfer as an investment, particularly its diversified operations and the stability its focus on long-term agreements offers. Because its operations span crude oil, natural gas, and NGLs, Energy Transfer is less exposed to price fluctuations in a single commodity. The company also focuses on long-term agreements, which can provide reliable cash flow even during periods of volatility in the broader energy market. As an example, in November 2025, Energy Transfer signed a 20-year natural gas firm transportation agreement with electric utility Entergy Louisiana. What to consider before investing. The increased demand for natural gas to power data centers is promising, but building, operating, and maintaining pipelines and their associated infrastructure is a capital-intensive process, and Energy Transfer has the balance sheet to prove it. It's carrying more than $70 billion in long-term debt and has a debt-to-equity ratio of 142%. Elevated or increasing interest rates could create an issue for the company if it needs to refinance its debt, as high interest rates will restrict its financial flexibility.

Course change: NLRB asks federal court to strike removal protections. LinkedIn Facebook X On March 23, 2026, the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") asked a federal court to declare unconstitutional and sever the provisions in the National Labor Relations Act (the "Act") that restrict the President's ability to remove NLRB Board Members and administrative law judges ("ALJs"). The filing comes in the case Energy Transfer LP v. NLRB, No. 3:24-cv-00198, pending in the Southern District of Texas, and is a remarkable step by the Board to attempt to weaken its own administrative independence. The NLRB's New Position in Energy Transfer An employee of a subsidiary of Energy Transfer LP, an energy company, brought an unfair labor practice charge against the company alleging that he had been unlawfully terminated in retaliation for making complaints. After Region 16 of the Board, based in Fort Worth, Texas, issued a complaint, the company sought a permanent injunction in federal court alleging, among other things, that the Board proceeding could not go forward because the NLRB's removal protections for its Board Members and ALJs are unconstitutional. After a long procedural history, the NLRB cross-moved for summary judgment on March 23rd. In its filing, the Board asked the court to sever the provisions limiting the President's ability to remove Board Members and ALJs and rule them unconstitutional. The NLRB's filing argues that severing those restrictions would eliminate the constitutional defect and allow the agency's unfair labor practice complaint against the company to continue. The Board argued that this result aligns most closely with the principle that the Board is subject to close presidential supervision, arguing that "if the president wanted the adjudication against La Grange to go forward - and La Grange cites no evidence suggesting otherwise - a permanent injunction ending the proceeding would frustrate the president's will...Clearly, that cannot be the correct result." The Board's change in position is not entirely unexpected. Just last year, as Quinnmorris covered here, the Board dropped its opposition to a party's constitutionality arguments in a case before the Fifth Circuit. Further, this concession comes during a wave of challenges to the Board's constitutional structure - as Quinnmorris has covered throughout the year (see here, here, and here.) Still, the filing reflects a remarkable step by the Board to stop defending its own independence. Quinnmorris await to see the court's ultimate ruling on the issue. The case is before Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, who was appointed by President Trump in 2019. The filing also reflects the Board's current focus on clearing its large backlog, as Quinnmorris has previously discussed. The Board's motion seeks to regain the ability to process the underlying unfair labor practice charge - and likely other currently-challenged charges pending within the Fifth Circuit's jurisdiction. Quinnmorris will monitor this issue for any updates.