Biography
Shari Mao is an attorney in Jackson Walker’s San Antonio office representing entrepreneurs, privately-held clients, and governmental agencies in a variety of corporate matters.
Shari advises her private sector clients throughout the corporate life-cycle ranging from entity formation and corporate governance to financing and divestitures. Leveraging her demonstrated experience as a former business owner, Shari represents clients in negotiating corporate terms and conditions, technology and operations contracts, financing agreements and purchase and sale contracts with a comprehensive understanding of each client’s individualized corporate needs and a focus on achieving their business goals. Additionally, Shari has experience in assisting government agencies with information technology outsourcing procurement projects.
As one of the only Mandarin speaking attorneys in the city of San Antonio, Shari regularly serves as counsel in mergers and acquisitions, business formation and corporate structuring, restructuring, financing options and succession planning and consult her clients on inbound cross-border transactions, specifically from Asia. Shari takes pride in offering her clients actionable advice in starting a business, growing the business through funding and acquisitions, and divesting the business in whole or in part.
As part of her practice, she advises family offices in planning and restructuring entities for asset protection, tax planning, and investment and estate planning strategies.
Prior to law school, Shari was vice president of a flooring company, where she managed the North American operations and collaborated with factories in China and Taiwan. She was a Risk Manager on the Pulp and Paper Desk at Enron and was retained after the mass termination to unwind and liquidate trades. Additionally, Ms. Mao was an associate at J.P. Morgan & Co., where she managed projects and implemented trade processing solutions in New York, London, and Tokyo.
During law school, Shari interned for Chief Judge Fred Biery of the United States District for the Western District of Texas, where she researched and wrote memos for the court. She also worked as a student attorney at St. Mary’s Center for Legal and Social Justice.
Additional Languages
Mandarin, Taiwanese
Education
B.A., magna cum laude, Duke University
J.D., magna cum laude, St. Mary’s University School of Law
- St. Mary’s Law Journal
- Associate Editor
- Staff Writer
Bar Admissions
Texas, 2012
- Represented a public mobile advertising solutions provider in its transformative acquisitions of three international mobile advertising companies valued in excess of $1 billion.
- Represented a leading modular building and portable storage provider in the Western U.S. in the sale of substantially all assets for a purchase price of $260 million.
- “Texas Rising Star,” Business/Corporate Law, Super Lawyers – Rising Stars by Thomson Reuters, 2021
- “Best S.A. Lawyers” List, San Antonio Scene, 2017-2020
- Business & Corporate
- “San Antonio’s Outstanding Women in Law,” San Antonio Scene, 2021
- “Rising Star Lawyers” List, Business & Corporate, San Antonio Scene, 2018-2020
- Fellow, Texas Bar Foundation, 2020
- Belva Lockwood Outstanding Young Lawyer Award, Bexar County Women’s Bar Foundation, 2015
- Panelist, St. Mary’s School of Law Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Roundtable (February 2021)
- Speaker, “The ABC’s of HSR,” Jackson Walker Internal HSR Compliance CLE (October 2020)
- Speaker, “The Anatomy of an International Contract,” Free Trade Alliance San Antonio Lunch & Learn (November 2014)
- Texas Bar Foundation, Fellow
- Leadership San Antonio (LSA), Participant, 2019
- Bexar County Women’s Bar Association and Foundation
- Treasurer, 2017
- Vice President, 2018
- Director, 2013-2018
- San Antonio Botanical Garden, Board of Directors, 2020
- Youth Orchestras of San Antonio, Board of Directors, Chair of the Board, 2018-2019
- Past Chair of Corporate Governance