Jack Balagia, ’76, vice president and general counsel of Exxon Mobil Corporation, will deliver the keynote address at the University of Texas School of Law’s Sunflower Ceremony graduation ceremony on May 21, 2011.
Balagia graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor of arts in 1973 and a juris doctor in 1976. Following graduation he served as law clerk to U.S. District Judge W.M. Taylor Jr. in Dallas. He then joined the Austin firm of McGinnis, Lochridge, and Kilgore, where his practice included energy litigation, oil and gas regulatory work, and media law; and where he handled numerous trials to verdict, appeals in state and federal courts, and represented clients in hundreds of contested administrative hearings before state agencies. He joined Exxon’s litigation section in 1998 and served as coordinator of the corporation’s upstream litigation until 2004 when he was named assistant general counsel. He was elected to his current position March 1, 2010.
Balagia serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Legal Reform of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Civil Justice Reform Group. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of the National Judicial College, the Board of Overseers for the RAND Institute for Civil Justice, and the Board of Trustees of the Center for American and International Law.
In 2000, the Texas Supreme Court appointed him to the Court’s Board of Disciplinary Appeals, which has original and appellate jurisdiction over Texas lawyer disciplinary matters; he served as Chairman of the Board from 2003–2005. Balagia has served in a number of capacities with committees of the State Bar of Texas, including several years as Chairman of the Bar’s Public Affairs Committee, as well as on the Board and as vice chair of the Houston Bar Foundation, which oversees financial support for Houston Bar pro bono activities. He is a former board member of the Austin Young Lawyers Association.
The Sunflower Ceremony will take place on Saturday, May 21, 2011, at 3:30 p.m. at the Frank Erwin Jr. Special Events Center. Degree candidates, their families and friends are invited to celebrate the accomplishments of the graduating class of 2011. A reception will be held in the Susman Godfrey Atrium of the Law School immediately following the ceremony.
Contact: Reymundo Ramos, UT Law Student Affairs Office, RRamos@law.utexas.edu, or 512-232-1140