Winners & Finalists from the Atlanta Business Chronicle | Association of Corporate Counsel “ACC-GA” Atlanta Corporate In House Counsel Awards were recently guests in the studio.
Dorian S. Denburg/AT&T
Dorian Denburg, Finalist – Diversity Champion, is the Past President of the National Association of Women Lawyers (its 111th President), founded in 1899 to advance women in the legal profession. She is a General Attorney for AT&T with responsibility for wireless and wired Network Operations, counseling clients, federal and state litigation, legislation and regulation. Previously she held numerous positions within the AT&T (previously BellSouth) Legal Department. During that time, the company avoided $600 million in expenses due to numerous federal and state cases of first impression and first-of-its-kind legislation for which Dorian was responsible.
Dorian has spoken extensively before legal, national legislative, municipal government, trade, federal and state associations. Her involvement with the community is wide, including service in many charitable, civic, educational and professional organizations. During her presidency, The National Association of Women Lawyers increased its membership by 32%.
The National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) is a national voluntary legal professional organization devoted to promoting the interests and progress of women lawyers and women’s legal rights.
Kali Wilson Beyah/Delta Air Lines, Inc.
Kali Wilson Beyah, Winner – Rising Star, is in-house counsel at Delta Air Lines, Inc. She joined the company in 2010 and has responsibility for a wide range of litigation matters, including class actions, complex commercial disputes, and patent infringement. Kali is also responsible for regulatory compliance counseling, aspects of ethics and compliance, and privacy matters.
Prior to joining Delta, she was a partner in the Litigation Group at Kilpatrick Townsend, formerly Kilpatrick Stockton. Kali is a graduate of Vanderbilt Law School and Florida A&M University. Kali’s community involvement includes co-chairing GABWA’s in-house section, and serving on the Go Red Executive Women’s Leadership Team and the Parent Advisory Board for Atlanta Parent Magazine. She is married to Dr. Raheem Beyah, and they have a daughter, Brie.
H. Eric Hilton/H.J. Russell & Company
Eric Hilton, Winner – Outstanding General Counsel, Solo, is Senior Vice President, Corporate Secretary and General Counsel of H. J. Russell & Company, recognized as the nation’s largest and oldest MBE construction management firm. Eric oversees legal affairs for the Company and its affiliates. Other responsibilities include oversight of Russell’s Human Resources and Risk Management functions. He is a member of the Company’s Senior Executive Team and its Employee Benefits & Investment Committee. In addition to working closely with outside counsel on a wide range of legal matters, Eric remains actively engaged in administrative matters before the EEOC and other agencies, construction dispute resolution, insurance coverage issues, commercial lease administration, contract negotiation and various transactional matters. He also serves as Company’s Chief Labor Negotiator.
Eric is active in a number of professional organizations. He is an At-Large Director for the Association of Corporate Counsel, Georgia Chapter and has served as an Advisory Board Member for the National Symposium on Diversity in the Legal Profession presented by the Philadelphia Bar Association. He is a past Advisory Board Member for the Pathways to Diversity Conference of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association. Eric has also held leadership roles in a number of service-based organizations to include the 100 Black Men of Atlanta Inc. where he previously served as chairman of its Collegiate 100 Program. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Georgia Radio Reading Service, which provides radio programming for the visually impaired and continues to serve as an on-air broadcaster for the organization. Eric also serves on the Fernbank Museum’s Corporate Leadership Council and is an alumnus of Leadership Atlanta.
Ashby L. Kent/Burr & Forman
Ashby L. Kent has practiced in Burr & Forman’s Litigation section since 2003 where she specializes in general commercial litigation. She has handled a wide variety of business disputes (tort and contract) for both plaintiffs and defendants, and her clients range from individuals and small businesses to large national financial institutions, including banks, lenders, mortgage companies and insurance companies.
Ashby represents her financial services clients in a variety of consumer finance and real estate matters, including actions for wrongful foreclosure, predatory lending, consumer protection law claims and other state and federal lender liability claims. In representing her title insurance clients, Ashby has handled numerous matters which involve evaluating and litigating bad faith claims, boundary line and easement disputes, one-half interest defects, lost or unrecorded security instruments issues, disputes over damages and loss valuations and other issues that frequently arise in the title insurance industry.
Ashby has nearly 10 years of experience litigating in Georgia’s state and federal courts, and has tried cases (bench and jury trials) in both. Additionally, she has successfully, efficiently and cost-effectively resolved numerous disputes through effective settlement negotiation and/or participation in alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, including mediation and arbitration.
