One year ago Dena DeNooyer Stroh traded a partnership in a boutique law firm for a job as the top lawyer at an energy company. "I came to a crossroads of ‘do I stay at the pinnacle of litigation, a woman partner at a trial boutique or do I try this, a female general counsel of an oil and gas company?’" DeNooyer Stroh says. With a one-year anniversary this month, does she think it was a good decision? "Absolutely," she says. "It’s been a great year."
DeNooyer Stroh is the general counsel and corporate secretary of Murchison Oil & Gas Inc., a privately held company based in Plano. Murchison was one of DeNooyer Stroh’s clients when she was a partner in Gruber Hurst Johansen Hail Shank in Dallas. Murchison was planning to accelerate its growth and decided it needed a fulltime general counsel, she says. "We’re trying to triple or quadruple the value of the company in the next five years," DeNooyer Stroh says. Murchison is involved in the acquisition, exploration, development and production of oil and gas resources in the U.S., she says. DeNooyer Stroh says she was attracted to the in-house job because it was a new challenge and would take less time away from her husband and two children. She says it’s also nice not to be tracking her time in six-minute increments. "I’m building relationships with the people I’m working with and there’s no downside," she says. "But in a firm, the downside would be that you are not billing."
