Chasless Yancy is a seasoned commercial litigator and strategic business attorney with more than 20 years of experience representing and advising businesses, lenders, property owners, and public entities. Her practices focuses on construction and infrastructure, complex commercial litigation, and contract disputes, drawing on substantial experience negotiating construction and procurement contracts, commercial real estate transaction, port operations, and bankruptcy and creditors-rights matters.
- Negotiated billion of dollars in publicly procured construction contracts while serving as Assistant General Counsel to Port Houston, including contracts supporting the Houston Ship Channel Expansion Project and hundreds of millions of dollars in construction projects funded through federal and state grants.
- Advised project and construction management teams throughout the contracting and procurement process, including contract drafting and negotiation, procurement strategy, risk allocation, contractor issues, and the resolution of project disputes.
- Developed and executed litigation strategy in a multi-million-dollar bankruptcy preference action, negotiating a settlement for less than one percent of the amount asserted against a publicly traded energy company.
- Negotiated complex commercial real estate transactions, including long-term leases, licenses, term sheets, option agreements, guaranties, property acquisitions, and other agreements involving commercial and industrial property and resulting in the growth of the Houston Ship Channel area.
- “What Legal Wants You to Know,” OpPORTunity U Small Business Program, Houston, Texas, 2019-2024
Admissions
- Texas
- Washington
Memberships
- American Bar Association 2013-Present
- Houston Bar Association 2001-Present
Community Involvement
- The Michael J. Redmond Memorial Dance Scholarship, Chairman of the Board, 2023-Present
Education
- J.D., Columbia University School of Law, 2001
- Student Senate
- Student Editor of the American Review of International Arbitration
- B.A., summa cum laude, Pre-Law/Political Science, University of St. Thomas, 1998
- Most Outstanding Graduate in Political Science
- Pi Gamma Mu
- Phi Sigma Tau
Honors
- Houston Top 50 General Counsel, Issued by the National Diversity Council, 2017 and 2019