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If Tim Braley hadn’t accepted an offer from Houston-based energy company Baker Hughes to come in-house as Executive Counsel of Global Ethics and Investigations, he would have likely become the acting US attorney for the Southern District of Texas. It was a goal Braley had been working toward his entire career, but the new potential position offered intriguing new challenges.
The lawyer spent just over seventeen years in Houston as a federal prosecutor. For a majority of that time, he was facing off against Mexican, Central American, and West African drug cartels, the Russian mob, and other organized crime entities.
At times, Braley found himself working with agents to chase down threats from the organized crime element. Braley himself was trained to carry a firearm. During his interview, he repeatedly mentions that, while those occasions were real, he considers himself very lucky compared to prosecutors in other countries.
“When you work in Mexico and Central America, you meet people who face the very real threat of violence almost every day,” Braley explains. “In the United States, agents work very hard to minimize the threats to fellow agents and prosecutors alike. I met members of law enforcement during international trips who wound up losing their lives, so I don’t want to overdramatize my years as a federal prosecutor. There are real threats, but they need to be contextualized.”
It wasn’t those occasional threats that made Braley accept a new job. It wasn’t the long hours or high-profile cases. Rather, Braley found himself deeply intrigued by a chance conversation he didn’t expect to go anywhere.
“We turned a rather expensive and, at times, slow program into one that competently handles most issues internally. That saves the company a lot of money each year and has cut the time to close those cases in half.”
Timothy Braley
A new chief compliance officer at Baker Hughes met Braley at a luncheon. That CCO told Braley he was looking to build a team of individuals with skill sets like Braley’s.
“The goal was to diversify the expertise in-house so the group could handle more internally to enhance the process while decreasing costs associated with sending cases to outside counsel,” Braley recalls. “The conversation bounced around to a few people and, before I knew it, the chief legal officer was telling me she wanted me in-house by the end of the year. This happened in October.”
Leaving his dream of becoming the US attorney in the rearview mirror, Braley took the plunge. The now executive counsel said he was motivated by the company’s purpose and the idea of building a crack team from scratch—a team that, if assembled correctly, could provide incredible value for the company.
His first move was centralizing investigations. Braley persuaded his organization to take on some somewhat “nontraditional” talent: a former FBI agent (and FBI profiler), two former Department of Homeland Security agents (one with experience in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the other well versed in repatriating money from fraud cases), and a forensic accountant from the organization’s internal audit team to complement a seasoned team of human resource professionals.
“Now, every investigation comes through this team,” Braley explains. “We turned a rather expensive and, at times, slow program into one that competently handles most issues internally. That saves the company a lot of money each year and has cut the time to close those cases in half.”
The team built benchmarking credibility and minimized risk, but also made Baker Hughes a better place to work, Braley says. If an issue arises, his team strives to prevent its recurrence. Ultimately, the team’s goal is that employees feel safe and supported.
“When you work in Mexico and Central America, you meet people who face the very real threat of violence almost every day. In the United States, agents work very hard to minimize the threats to fellow agents and prosecutors alike.”
Timothy Braley
Outside Baker Hughes, Braley acts as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston’s Law Center. It’s a position he’s held since 2010. His classes have included Criminal Procedure and even an advanced course on HBO’s The Wire.
Braley comes from a family of schoolteachers and he’s clearly got the skills in his genes. He is a great admirer of educators, who seem to be taking on more responsibility each year. During his time as a prosecutor, the lawyer walked the scene of a school shooting—a stark reminder of the risk that educators endure every day.
It’s easy to understand why Braley is a good teacher: He says he gets as much from his students as they do from him. He doesn’t want to be the old guy at the front of the room telling a bunch of students how hard it used to be “back in the day.” He wants to inspire them to pursue their own lives and tackle interesting and diverse subject matter.
Braley is tackling equally challenging subject matter off the clock. The father of three (and former college athlete) regularly coaches soccer, flag football, baseball, and basketball. This past season, he jokes, he watched a series of YouTube videos so he could pass for a volleyball coach. The lawyer says he is a father first and foremost, and there is no job title he takes more seriously.
“Tim is the consummate professional with unmatched experience and judgment. More importantly, Tim is a terrific person and a pleasure to work with in every way.”
–Widge Devaney, Partner
