Jackson Walker is proud to announce that both the Firm and its partners Stephanie Chandler, Lauren Ciminello, Julia Mann, and Elena Villaseñor Sullivan were nominated for the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce’s ATHENA Organizational Leadership Award.
The ATHENA Organizational Leadership Award honors organizations that actively create an organizational culture that encourages women employees to achieve their leadership potential and gives back to the larger community of women and girls by providing and/or supporting leadership development opportunities and initiatives. The winner of the award will be announced at a luncheon at the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce’s Enterprising Women’s Conference on September 26, 2014, in San Antonio, Texas.
Jackson Walker was selected as a result of the successful women who lead both within the San Antonio Jackson Walker office and external to the firm in our community and for the firm’s programs to encourage other women to be successful including the jw² women’s initiative. Dedicated to the attraction, retention, and promotion of women professionals, jw² creates opportunities for women attorneys to build strong networks to sustain a successful and satisfying legal career. At the same time, jw² supports women in their efforts to make an impact in the community.
Ms. Chandler is co–chair of the San Antonio office’s Public Company practice and statewide chair of the firm’s Technology practice. She assists clients with the formation of organizations, public and private offerings of securities, governance issues and shareholder proxy contests, as well as Securities Act and Exchange Act compliance matters. Outside the firm, she serves on the Board of Directors of the North San Antonio Chamber, where she recently wrapped up her year chairing the Chamber’s SustainAbility initiative. She also serves on the Board of the Women’s Energy Network – South Texas and the San Antonio Medical Foundation. She has also invested her time serving on the Boards of programs such as the United Way’s Masters Leadership Program and the Family Service Association of San Antonio. She previously was selected for an Athena Young Professional Award for Community Service. She and her extraordinarily supportive husband, Chip, are the parents of two super–active boys, Wyatt and Brady Chandler.
Ms. Ciminello is statewide chair of the firm’s Family Office practice. She regularly represents sophisticated family offices by advising on business operations, tax and wealth planning issues, succession planning, and structuring and negotiating corporate and finance transactions for the assets held by such families and their operating businesses. Ms. Ciminello also serves as hiring partner for the San Antonio office and has served over the years as a mentor for law students during the firm’s summer clerkship program. Outside the firm, Ms. Ciminello serves on the Board of Directors for the Family Service Association of San Antonio and has been actively involved with the National Association of Women Business Owners, serving twice on the judging panel for the Entrepreneurial Spirit Awards, presented to outstanding women entrepreneurs in the San Antonio community. Ms. Ciminello has provided pro bono legal service to several non–profit organizations in San Antonio, including Haven for Hope as they embarked upon the financing of their leading edge campus serving the homeless. She and her husband, Vito, have been married for 9 years and have been blessed with a beautiful daughter, Harper, and a baby on the way.
Ms. Mann is chair of the San Antonio office’s Litigation practice. Ms. Mann is the first woman to hold this position in the San Antonio office. Her primary focus is on oil and gas litigation, commercial litigation and e–Discovery. Her practice encompasses contractual disputes, professional liability claims, royalty disputes, and business torts such as fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, tortious interference, and creditors’ rights. Licensed to practice in both Texas and Oklahoma, Ms. Mann’s practice is not limited to San Antonio, although she has litigated claims unique to South Texas, such as defending record land ownership traced to original land grant by the Government of Spain. Outside the firm, Ms. Mann serves on the Board of Directors of the National Charity League, and she has also served on the board of the Bexar County Women’s Bar Association. Ms. Mann and her husband of 20 years, Greg Mann, are the parents of three lovely girls – Hannah, Sarah and Jessica. As a mother of three daughters, Ms. Mann’s personal commitment to community services focuses upon empowering girls and young women with the skills and confidence to lead, social awareness, compassion and commitment to philanthropic endeavors.
Ms. Sullivan leads San Antonio’s jw² business development initiatives in San Antonio. She is a commercial trial and appellate attorney who has been described by the San Antonio Business Journal as tenacious in the courtroom “when she represents business owners and corporations in fiery litigation.” Outside the firm, Ms. Sullivan serves on the Board of Directors for Junior Achievement South Texas, serves on the National Association of Women’s Business Owner’s foundation committee encouraging teen girls to pursue entrepreneurship and higher education, represents indigent women pro bono through the Community Justice Program, and was recently selected as one of sixteen Latino Leaders in San Antonio by Latino Leaders Magazine. Ms. Sullivan grew up in San Antonio, received her B.A., cum laude, from Boston College, and her J.D. from the University of Southern California Law School. She is married to Boston native Chris Sullivan, and they have a two-year-old daughter, Lucia.
