(Houston/Dallas) – Gray Reed & McGraw welcomes two attorneys with extensive experience in banking and employment.

Mary Axelrad joined the firm’s Houston office as a Member. Mary focuses on financial services and real estate, regularly representing commercial lenders in complex transactions including asset based, real estate secured and lines of credit. Her expertise also includes restructuring and workouts.

Within her real estate practice, Mary regularly advises on the legal intricacies concerning acquisitions, dispositions, lease negotiations, landlord-tenant relations, multifamily projects, condominium projects, homeowners’ association issues, and more. Her clientele includes financial institutions (local, regional and national), private lenders, developers, investors, insurance companies, corporations, non-profit companies, and high net-worth individuals.

Gray Reed is also excited to welcome established employment attorney Gayla Crain to the firm’s Dallas office as Of Counsel. She draws on her 40 years of experience representing clients in all areas of labor and employment law, and in a variety of business disputes. She is known for her energetic, practical approach to counseling clients.

Gayla is experienced in multi-plaintiff and class actions and injunction proceedings. In addition, she devotes much of her time to counseling clients on employment practices and policies designed to avoid potential problems. Prior to entering private practice, Gayla served as counsel for Trailways Corporation and Schering Plough Corporation. She was also a founding member of the Dallas office of Epstein, Becker and Green and co-founded Crain Wilson.

About Gray Reed & McGraw

Founded in 1985, Gray Reed & McGraw is a full-service, Texas based law firm with more than 120 lawyers practicing in Dallas, Houston and Tyler. Gray Reed & McGraw 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.