The Board of Trustees
S. Jack Balagia
Ex-Officio Trustee
Jack Balagia is Assistant General Counsel, Litigation, for Exxon
Mobil Corporation, in Houston, Texas. Before joining Exxon, he
was a partner with McGinnis, Lochridge and Kilgore in the firm's
Austin and Houston offices, where his practice principally included
energy and media law litigation. Mr. Balagia graduated from the
University of Texas (B.A. 1973 and J.D. 1976) and served as law
clerk to U.S. District Judge W.M. Taylor, Jr. in Dallas, Texas.
He has served in a number of capacities with committees
of the State Bar of Texas, including Chairman of the Public Affairs
Committee, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Austin
Young Lawyers Association. He has been a frequent speaker at various
oil and gas litigation and media law seminars, was appointed to the
Legal Committee of the Interstate Oil Compact Commission, and served
as a member of the Board of Directors of the Freedom of Information
Foundation. He was appointed by the Texas Supreme Court in 2000 to
the Court's Board of Disciplinary Appeals, which has original and
appellate jurisdiction over Texas lawyer discipline matters, and served
as Chairman of the Board from 2003-05.
He has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America (1994,
1998) and has been named a Texas Super Lawyer by Texas
Monthly magazine (2005-2007 editions). Mr. Balagia serves on
the Board of the Houston Bar Foundation, and is also a Life Fellow
of the Texas Bar Foundation. He has served on the Seton Medical Center
Medical Ethics Council in Austin, and was the ExxonMobil Law Department
Coordinator for the Gulf Coast United Way Campaign in 2000. He is
a past-President of the Travis County University of Texas Ex-Students
Association, he currently serves on the Executive Committee of the
UT Law School Alumni Association and is a member of the University's
Chancellor's Council Executive Committee and Littlefield Society.