MinerAlert
MinerAlert
A former high school basketball player, UTEP electrical engineering alumna and attorney Hilda Galvan has found the same excitement in the courtroom as she did on the basketball court.
As a UTEP student, she worked part-time for a local lawyer, which allowed her to gain experience inside the courtroom and helped pave her path to a vibrant career as a lawyer focusing on technology litigation, building on her electrical engineering knowledge.
Since graduating from UTEP in 1985, she has made partner at her law firm, represented some of the largest names in the tech industry, and returned the good fortune to pre-law and engineering students at UTEP through her work with the Law School Preparation Institute and the Galvan-Contreras Endowed Student Scholarship that she started with her husband, a fellow UTEP grad. As one of UTEP’s 2023 Distinguished Alumni awardees, she illustrates just what a successful UTEP alum can be.
“Hilda Galvan is a star in and out of the courtroom,” said Kenith Meissner, Ph.D., dean of the College of Engineering. “From her work in the community and at UTEP to representing the University as a partner for such a prestigious law firm, she is more than deserving of this year’s Distinguished Alumni award.”
Galvan currently serves as the partner-in-charge of the Dallas office for the law firm Jones Day, overseeing strategic planning and operational oversight on top of her work in the courtroom. She credits her feat of becoming a partner with such a well-known law firm as one of her proudest moments.
“I started as a young lawyer,” Galvan said. “If you look at the statistics, [making partner] is hard at these big law firms. The number of Latina partners in law firms is less than 1%. And I started [my career] with a baby, so life was incredibly challenging. I had to buckle down and power through. I had a ton of support from my husband, but it was a hard road to get there. So that was my proudest moment.”
As a lawyer with over 30 years in the industry, she represents both large technology companies and smaller, newer startups in litigation disputes about patents or trade secrets, which allows her to pair her engineering degree with her law degree.
After graduating with her B.S. in Electrical Engineering, she worked as an engineer for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company for five years. During that time, she married her husband, Mike, whom she had met at UTEP. She then earned her law degree at The University of Texas at Austin. Her son was born during her final stretch of law school. As a mom, she juggled late nights taking care of her son and studying for the bar exam. Her tenacity to succeed despite these challenges was borne from her parents’ support and drive for their children to earn an education.
“My mom grew up in Mexico and dropped out of school in sixth grade,” Galvan said. “My dad is the eldest son in his family, so he dropped out as a sophomore in high school in order to help his family financially. So, they didn’t have an education, but they always stressed the importance of it.”
Galvan was first introduced to engineering through a programming class she took as a middle schooler, though programming looked a little different back then.
“You would get a deck of cards and you had one statement per card,” Galvan said. “Then you would take your stack of cards over to the mainframe and process it. You’d get this big printout of what you had come up with. So, I was learning how to program then and started to kind of like that side of it, but I didn’t know anything about [engineering].”
In high school, she had the opportunity to participate in a summer program at UTEP that helped her learn more about careers as an engineer. She learned about different fields, including civil and mechanical engineering, but her heart was set on becoming an electrical engineer.
While transitioning from engineering to law isn’t the most traditional route, Galvan encourages current UTEP students to dream big and look for opportunities to take risks and follow the path less traveled.
“Keep your eyes open and get that job as an engineer and do a great job,” Galvan said. “But look around and see what else you can do from there. Remember to look up sometimes. There’s so much out there, so don’t hesitate to dream big. You can go to law school or be an engineer and then become president of UTEP. Your engineering degree is just the beginning of a lifetime of opportunity.”