Gray Reed Member Fred Gaona received the Texas Minority Counsel Program (TMCP) Trailblazer Outside Counsel of the Year award at the organization’s 24th annual conference held Nov. 9-11, 2016, in Irving, Texas.
The award is presented to the attorney judged by the TMCP Committee to have done the most to effectuate the promotion of diversity within the legal profession through hiring, retention, and mentoring of minority, women, and LGBT attorneys.
Gaona practices labor and employment law in Gray Reed’s Dallas office. He has extensive litigation experience with all types of employment disputes, including claims under Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act and numerous state statutes. He also handles general litigation matters, resolves non-competition agreement disputes and has experience defending class action and collective action lawsuits and cases in arbitration.
Gaona frequently speaks on employment law issues, giving presentations on topics including the Family Medical Leave Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Texas arbitration law and electronic issues in the workplace. He served as co-chair of the TMCP in 2011-2012.
He earned his law degree from the Ohio State University College of Law and his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame, graduating cum laude.
About Gray Reed & McGraw
For more than 30 years, Gray Reed has been a full-service, Texas based law firm with more than 120 lawyers practicing in Dallas and Houston. Gray Reed offers a wide range of legal services including business litigation, corporate transactions, oil & gas, tax planning and litigation, real estate, healthcare, trusts and estates, employment law, family law, intellectual property, and bankruptcy. For more information, visit www.grayreed.com.
About Texas Minority Counsel Program
The Texas Minority Counsel Program, created in 1993, is an annual networking and continuing legal education event hosted by the State Bar of Texas Office of Minority Affairs. TMCP endeavors to increase opportunities for minority and women attorneys who provide legal services to corporate and government clients, and to expose those organizations to the talent found in the minority and woman lawyer communities.