Vicki D. Blanton

Dallas, TX

Vicki D. Blanton, Assistant Vice President – Senior Legal Counsel for AT&T Inc. in Dallas, Texas, provides legal advice and counsel in her primary areas of responsibility, which include the retirement benefit plans (approx. $100B in total assets), severance plans, ERISA litigation SME, and as Assistant Secretary of the AT&T Federal PAC. Additionally, the SMU Dedman School of Law invited Vicki, who also serves as an Executive Board member, to be an inaugural Adjunct Professor, Faculty Supervisor and Advisory Board Member for its Corporate Counsel Externship Program for the Fall 2023 semester.

She currently serves on the Executive Board of the Dallas Bar Association (approximately 12,000 voluntary members) as the First Vice President, having been formerly elected as Member-at-Large, Secretary/Treasurer and Vice Chair and Chair of the Board of Directors. Vicki’s other philanthropic, civic, and charitable endeavors include the Village Giving Circle of the Texas Women’s Foundation, Founding Member; Broadway Dallas Board of Directors, Personnel and Compensation Committee Chair; The Dallas Assembly, member; Texas Center for Legal Ethics, Trustee; and DBA Community Service Fund Board, President. Vicki also served as the Nominating Co-Chair for District 6 of the Texas Bar Foundation; a former board member for the American Red Cross North Texas Chapter; Past Chair of the J.L. Turner Legal Association Foundation Board; a member of Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations; and Co-Chair of the record-setting Equal Access to Justice campaign for Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. The J.L. Turner Legal Association won accolades from the State Bar of Texas and the National Bar Association during her presidency in 2007. She has received individual recognition with Presidential Awards from the National Bar Association, the State Bar of Texas and the Dallas Bar Association.

Named as a 2021 Counsel of the Year by American Lawyer Magazine; 2020 TMCP Corporate Counsel of the Year for the State Bar of Texas, an Outstanding Corporate Counsel of the Year for the Women Lawyers’ Division of the National Bar Association and a Best Lawyer by Dallas Business Journal, D Magazine, and Eclipse Magazine, Vicki is an American Fellow of the German Marshall Memorial Fund and was a Barrister in the American Inns of Court. Vicki has been honored by her employers being named a 2022 AT&T Black Future Maker, the American Airlines High Flyer Award, the J.C. Penney Award Golden Rule Award. Vicki is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, a Juris Doctorate from Southern Methodist University School of Law, and a Certificate of Study at Georgetown University’s Executive Development Program at the London School of Economics. Vicki has 2 daughters, a 2017 alumna of Howard University and a 2018 alumna of the University of Missouri at Columbia (MIZZOU). Vicki is a frequently invited speaker on various topics including benefits and executive compensation, diversity and professional development. Her favorite discussion point, the gender wage gap, addresses the intersectionality of those diverse subjects.