CHICAGO, Sept. 22, 2020 — Jeannie C. Frey, senior vice president, chief legal officer and general counsel of Irving, Texas-based CHRISTUS Health, has been elected to a one-year term as chair of the American Bar Association Business Law Section. Frey assumes leadership on Sept. 25 at the end of the section’s Annual Meeting and will serve until September 2021.
“As the first in-house counsel to become chair of the Business Law Section in over 20 years, I hope to encourage engagement in the section by business lawyers from all practice settings — whether in-house, the judiciary, academia, government; or small, medium or big law firms in the U.S., Canada and other countries,” Frey said. “Like the ABA overall, the section offers a unique forum to share different perspectives on legal issues from a variety of vantage points.”
CHRISTUS Health is a multi-national nonprofit health system, with U.S. operations primarily in Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico, and Latin American operations in Mexico, Colombia and Chile. Prior to joining CHRISTUS Health in 2018, Frey was chief legal officer and general counsel of Presence Health, a Catholic health system based in Chicago, from 2011-18. She also served as general counsel of Resurrection Health Care in Chicago (2004-11) and was a partner in the health law department of McDermott, Will & Emery in its Chicago office.
Frey’s professional activities have included serving on the board of the Illinois Association of Healthcare Attorneys, the Audit and Corporate Responsibility Committee of Mercy Health (Cincinnati) and in numerous leadership positions in the ABA Business Law Section, including chair of the Nonprofit Organizations Committee.
Frey is the author or editor of numerous books on nonprofit governance published by the ABA, including:
- “Guidebook for Directors of Nonprofit Organizations” — managing editor (2nd ed., 2002); executive editor (3rd ed, 2012)
- “Guide to Nonprofit Governance in the Wake of Sarbanes-Oxley” — lead author, 2005
- “Guide to Representing Religious Organizations” — executive editor, 2009
- “Nonprofit Management and Governance (3rd ed.) — co-executive editor, 2011
Frey, a native of New Orleans, received her J.D. Degree from Yale Law School and her B.A. from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
A photo of Jeannie C. Frey can be found here.
With nearly 40,000 members, the ABA Business Law Section is one of the association’s largest sections. It provides business lawyers with education and analysis that furthers the development and improvement of business law, and it helps its members serve their clients competently, efficiently and professionally.
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