It’s not every year that a company’s top lawyer plays a role in taking on the U.S. president. And wins. Twice.

But 2018 wasn’t a usual year for David McAtee, senior executive vice president and general counsel at AT&T Inc. In June, the team that McAtee had assembled nearly two years earlier secured a once-in-a-career victory when, after a grueling six-week trial in Washington, D.C., a federal judge cleared the Dallas-based telecommunications giant’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit later affirmed the ruling.