2024 ACG DFW September Oklahoma City Content Program

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Clifford "Cliff" Hudson serves of counsel in Crowe & Dunlevy's Oklahoma City office. As former Chairman of the Board and CEO of Sonic Corp., and as a member of the Corporate & Securities Practice Group, Cliff’s nearly four decades of legal and business experience offers clients an array of business advisory counsel regarding corporate governance, board consulting, business transactions and franchising operations, among other corporate matters.

In addition to leading the publicly held Sonic Corp. as CEO, he previously served the organization as general counsel, chief financial officer and chief operating officer.

During his tenure as CEO, Sonic’s systemwide sales increased from $861 million to $4.5 billion. In that time, he has been a frequent guest on Bloomberg News, CNBC and Fox Business News. In 2019, Entrepreneur Magazine’s list of Franchise 500 ranked Sonic as the #3 franchise opportunity in the country.

From 1994 to 2001, Cliff served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), a presidential appointment. His nomination was approved unanimously by the Senate Finance Committee and by acclamation of the US Senate. He is a former trustee of the Ford Foundation (New York) and is a past chairman of the board of trustees of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Cliff received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Oklahoma with Phi Beta Kappa and President’s Leadership scholarships. He has been awarded with many honors from the University of Oklahoma, including the University’s Regents Award and an honorary doctoral degree in humane letters.

A graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center, Cliff served as an editor of the International Law Journal (a publication of the Association of Student International Law Societies) and was a member of the legal honor society Phi Delta Phi. He previously served as chair of the board of visitors for Georgetown University Law Center and was honored with its Paul Dean Award. He has also been awarded with the Georgetown Alumni Association’s highest honor—the John Carroll Award.

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James "Jay" Larimore is a director in Crowe & Dunlevy's Oklahoma City office. His practice focuses on multiple aspects of business, commercial and oil and gas industry transactions, from entity formation and organizational matters to debt and equity capital-raising activities, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, securities law compliance, oil and gas commercial transactions and tax planning. He has significant experience representing publicly-held and private clients in joint ventures, acquisitions, divestitures, securities offerings, debt financings and the negotiation of various other transactions, both in the energy and oilfield service sectors and in a number of other industries. Jay is listed in Best Lawyers in the specialties of banking and finance, business organizations (including LLCs and partnerships), commercial transactions/UCC, corporate governance, corporate, mergers and acquisitions, securities/capital markets and securities regulation.* In 2016, he was named Oklahoma City Lawyer of the Year for business organizations including LLCs and partnerships, in addition to being named Lawyer of the Year in securities/capital market law in 2014.* Jay has been listed as an Oklahoma Super Lawyer (2013 – 2015) and was previously recognized as a Rising Star by the same publication (2008 – 2012).*

Jay attended The University of Texas School of Law (J.D., 2001), where he graduated with honors. In addition to serving as a member of Texas Law Review, he was a recipient of the Townes Hall Society Scholarship, and he also received the Consul Award for significant contributions to The University of Texas School of Law through extracurricular activities, scholarship, initiative, personality, responsibility and integrity. Jay also was a legal research and writing teaching assistant during his last two years of law school and was recognized as the legal research and writing teaching assistant of the year for the 2000 – 2001 academic year. Before attending law school, he attended the University of Oklahoma (B.B.A., 1997), where he majored in finance and graduated with special distinction.