All seven women lawyers in Haynes and Boone, LLP’s San Antonio office are included in San Antonio Scene Magazine’s 2021 Best Female Lawyers list.
They are: Partners Diana Liebmann, Laura E. O'Donnell, and Suzanne Murray; Counsels Paloma Z. Ahmadi, Elizabeth Breazeale and Jennifer Ingram; and Associate Abby Johanson.
Scene Magazine’s list is based on an Annual Survey of Outstanding Women in Law as referred by their peers. The magazine will feature all of the “Best Female Lawyers” online later this month.
Read more about the honorees below:
Paloma Ahmadi
Ahmadi is a member of the firm’s Labor and Employment Practice Group. She enjoys working alongside her clients as a collaborative partner, providing thoughtful and effective advocacy through every stage of labor and employment issues. Ahmadi spent several years of her career in an in-house role and draws on that experience to give practical, business-oriented advice. Her practice now focuses on labor and employment litigation, investigations, and counseling. Ahmadi has represented clients in proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) proceedings and in discrimination, harassment, and non-compete litigation. Ahmadi regularly defends companies in Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) collective actions, and she also represents management-side clients in collective bargaining and union grievances.
Ahmadi was also listed as a 2021 Rising S.A. Star Lawyer in Scene Magazine earlier this year.
Jennifer Ingram
Ingram is counsel in the firm’s Labor and Employment Practice Group. She is an innovative and collaborative partner to her clients, using her breadth of in-house experience to take a common-sense, business-oriented approach to her client advice and advocacy. Her practice focuses on labor and employment litigation, client counseling and training, traditional labor law, executive investigations, executive agreements, and the labor and employment aspects of mergers, acquisitions, and other corporate transactions.
In her prior role as vice president and associate general counsel for a publicly traded specialty retailer, Ingram’s practice included labor and employment, environmental and regulatory compliance, intellectual property, litigation, marketing, contracts, franchise, risk management, data security and privacy, government investigations, crisis communications and response, board governance, and corporate due diligence across North America.
Abby Johanson
Johanson is an associate in the firm’s Real Estate Practice Group. Her practice focuses on helping clients in San Antonio, Austin and Central Texas with a range of commercial real estate matters, including the negotiation and preparation of documents relating to the acquisition, disposition, leasing, financing, and development of various income producing commercial properties.
Johanson’s experience includes representing both private and institutional parties, with respect to the acquisition, disposition, leasing, financing and development, and day-to-day operations of commercial real estate properties.
Johanson was listed as a Rising Star Lawyer in Scene Magazine in 2018.
Diana Liebmann
Liebmann leads the firm’s Power and Renewables practice, is a partner in the Capital Markets and Securities practice, manages the San Antonio office as its managing partner, and is a leader in her community.
Her legal advocacy and regulatory experience have helped clients through multiple restructurings of the electric power markets in Texas, to create the rules for the evolving ERCOT market. Liebmann understands the risks inherent in certain transactions under constantly changing market rules and dynamics. She has represented clients in analyzing and structuring power supply arrangements for both wholesale and retail sales, including assisting LNG facilities with structuring power transactions.
Laura O’Donnell
O’Donnell is a partner, co-chair of the firm's Litigation Practice Group, and leader of the Wage and Hour Litigation group. She is board certified in labor and employment law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Her practice includes employment litigation, client counseling, executive investigations, executive agreements, nationwide employment-law compliance projects, and employment aspects of M&A and other corporate transactions.
On the litigation front, O’Donnell focuses on the defense of FLSA collective actions, but she also regularly defends employers against a multitude of employment-related claims. She has handled several appeals of employment decisions to Texas Courts of Appeal, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Liebmann, O’Donnell and Ahmadi were also listed among the Best San Antonio Lawyers in 2020 by Scene Magazine.
Elizabeth Breazeale
Breazeale is counsel in the firm’s Real Estate Practice Group and has served clients in San Antonio, Austin, and Central Texas since 1990. Her work entails general real estate matters, real estate development, water/groundwater rights, construction/contracting, finance, and general business.
Breazeale helped the firm advise Chilean Asset Manager Toesca on a U.S. $150 million DIP loan to LATAM Airlines Group.
Suzanne Murray
Murray is a partner in the firm’s Environmental Practice Group whose practice focuses on climate and energy. She has proven results in all major areas of environmental law, and has built strong and productive relationships with State and Federal partners, the regulated community, environmental advocacy groups and communities which benefit her clients and help them achieve win-win outcomes in complex, multi-faceted environmental resolutions.
Murray draws on this real world experience to help clients achieve their objectives in acquisitions, rule challenges, government investigations, permitting, defense of enforcement actions, crisis management and emergency response, compliance audits, fuels, climate regulation and carbon trading matters. She currently represents many Fortune 50, mid-cap and small companies in the energy, industrial, finance, real estate, agricultural and retail sectors.