Haynes and Boone, LLP Associate Morgan Haenchen has joined the Houston Young Lawyers Association (HYLA) Board of Directors, continuing her work with a successful diversity and inclusion initiative – an allyship book club – that she co-founded last year.
In her new role, she hopes to continue to support and expand HYLA’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
“My focus on the HYLA Board will be to continue to create space for young lawyers to reflect upon and challenge our understanding of the impact of racism on our profession and to continue to both amplify and invest in black voices,” Morgan said.
Last year during the pandemic, she co-founded the HYLA Allyship Book Club, which has hosted author speakers and tripled in membership since it started. Last year, HYLA received a Texas Young Lawyers Association grant to support the efforts of the Book Club and was recently awarded TYLA’s Diversity Award for the 2021 Large City Awards of Achievement, due in part to the success with the Book Club.
“The purpose of the Book Club is to create a safe space for young lawyers to relearn our history in a robust and honest context, to receive different perspectives and the ideas underlying them, and to instruct ourselves on how to do more and do better both in and beyond our community,” Morgan said.
So far, the club has read Ijeoma Oluo’s “So You Want to Talk About Race,” “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Professor Caleb McDaniel’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning novel “Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America.”
“In April, HYLA hosted a President's Event with Professor McDaniel, and we had an opportunity to ask him about his work and his research—it was an incredible event,” Morgan said.
The group is currently reading “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” by Bryan Stevenson.
The group has more than 50 HYLA members on its membership roster, including civil, criminal, government, and non-profit attorneys who are diverse in age, gender, religion, political affiliation, and race.
“We are choosing to continue to meet remotely so our reach can extend outside of our city. If young lawyers in Texas haven’t had the chance to join us yet, now is the perfect time to make the leap,” she said.
Morgan is an associate in the Energy Litigation Practice Group in The Woodlands and Houston offices of Haynes and Boone. Morgan has experience representing clients in state and federal oil-and-gas upstream and midstream disputes, complex commercial and multi-district litigation, and alternative dispute resolution. A proud and native Houstonian raised by Texan lawyers, Morgan has a deep passion the Texas and Houston bars.
In addition to joining the HYLA Board of Directors, Morgan is a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court, a founding member of Impact100, a Fellow of the Houston Young Lawyers Foundation, serves as a board member and committee chair of the Houston Young Lawyers Association, and is an active member of the Bar of Texas Pro Bono College.