This week’s edition of P.S. features a spotlight on Houston-based, fatherhood-focused nonprofit CoolxDad and a Q&A with the lawyer who recently handled the lease negotiations for its new headquarters pro bono, details of a recent 5K benefiting those affected by sickle cell disease that was sponsored by a Dallas law firm, another firm operating in Dallas that just became NAMWOLF certified and June dates for the Dallas Bar Association’s LegalLine E-Line Clinic.

This week’s P.S. column features background information on two fundraising events on June 13: a luncheon event that raises scholarship funds for Texas Hispanic students interested in a career in the law and an evening event to celebrate Pride Month and raise scholarship funds for LGBTQ+ law students.

Firms featured in this week’s P.S. include Reed Smith, Lynn Pinker, Dykema, Paul Hastings, Sidley, Baker McKenzie, V&E, Gibson Dunn, Holland & Knight, Baker Botts, Greenberg Traurig, Jackson Walker, Kirkland, Bell Nunnally, Weil, Haynes Boone, Foley, O’Melveny, Law Office of Domingo Garcia, Norton Rose Fulbright, McKool Smith, K&L Gates, Alston & Bird, Linebarger, Jackson Lewis, Ogletree Deakins, Akin, Barnes & Thornburg, Lira Bravo Law.

Vinson & Elkins associate Jas Sethi was a second-year law student at Northwestern University when his 19-year-old sister lost her life to suicide after a yearslong battle with depression and addiction. While at first the tragedy eliminated his reason for attending law school, it helped him begin his legal career with a new sense of purpose. This upcoming school year, the University of Texas’ Steve Hicks School of Social Work will begin offering a scholarship Sethi started for students pursuing social work careers that specialize in substance misuse and recovery. Beyond honoring his sister, Sethi hopes the scholarship helps bring more social workers into the space who are energized to pursue reforms to the system he says failed her.

“I want to make it so that nobody ever has to feel like Simran did,” Sethi said. “I can’t do that all in one day, and I don’t know if I can do that at all, but the scholarship is what I can do now.”

Public service news for this week includes info on the HBA’s newest president, board of directors and award honorees; June dates for Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program’s legal clinics; two lawyers appointed by the governor to the state’s OneStar Foundation; and how those in Texas affected by the recent severe storms can receive legal and recovery assistance.

This week’s P.S. features a grant deadline (today) for any Dallas-area organizations pursuing projects that support women; lawyers from Yetter Coleman, Shipley Snell, and Hunton Andrews Kurth receiving pro bono/community service-related awards; a trivia event that raised funds for Children’s Health; an upcoming gala that supports the Dallas LGBTQ+ community that’s in need of more sponsors; and a recent ribbon-cutting event at Houston’s civil courthouse to celebrate the recent installation of the first of several planned lactation pods.

Hector Pineda is kind of a big deal at Shell. Throughout his nearly three-decade career at one of the world’s largest oil companies, he’s gone from battling a snake wrangler in a West Texas courtroom to handling major projects and commercial transactions to providing strategic advice to top executives and managers leading Shell’s downstream and renewables businesses in the Americas. But no matter how high he climbs in the company, it is his ability to advance others and be a microphone for diverse voices that he is most proud of.Pineda is one of three finalists for the 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Diversity and Inclusion, and the winner will be revealed Wednesday at an awards ceremony hosted by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook.

When you hear the phrase diversity, equity and inclusion, your mind probably goes to the boilerplate topics that are the subject of so many panel discussions in Corporate America — diverse candidate pool, hiring and retention practices, mentorship versus sponsorship, to name a few. But for Spire General Counsel Sean Jamieson, DEI became a life-or-death matter in the summer of 2021 as a whopper regulatory battle put an existential threat to the existence of one of Spire’s natural gas pipelines. Critics thought Spire only designed its STL Pipeline project to line its own pockets. Jamieson and Spire viewed the pipeline as a means to diversify the natural gas source in eastern Missouri to lower the cost of delivering reliable energy to the people who need it the most: a widely vulnerable, underrepresented customer base.

“This would have been bad for our business. But it would have been terrible for people,” Jamieson said. “I had spent the months before working with the technical analysts and modeling what it would mean if we didn’t have this pipeline, the number of customers we would potentially lose. I learned and internalized all the mechanics associated with what would actually happen.”

Jamieson’s sleepless, behind-the-scenes work to bring together diverse viewpoints to solve complex problems is why Spire’s STL Pipeline is still running. It’s also why he’s a finalist for the Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook’s 2024 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion.

This week’s edition of P.S. features an award-winning environmental justice paper that earned a University of Houston law student a law firm-sponsored scholarship, an upcoming cluster of scholarships worth $150,000 that will be awarded to graduating high school seniors by a Dallas law firm, info on The Lawbook’s new pro bono advocacy award honoring a great pro bono legend in the state and a thank-you note from the Texas Lawbook Foundation to recent donors.

Plus: how to get a charitable deduction by donating to the Texas Lawbook Foundation if the recent tax season bummed you (and your wallet) out.