The Oklahoma Bar Journal October 2025

B ench & B ar B riefs

ON THE MOVE Ryan A. Callahan has joined the Oklahoma City office of McAfee & Taft as an associate. He is a member of the Tax and Family Wealth Practice Group, the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Practice Group and the Agriculture and Equine Industry Group. Mr. Callahan’s practice encompasses the areas of asset protection and wealth transfer tax planning for high- net-worth families and individu als, business and tax planning for closely held family businesses, estate and trust planning and adminis tration, consulting on business and transaction taxation and tax- advantaged activities and the resolu tion of tax disputes and controversies with state and federal authorities. He also advises businesses of all sizes on the design, implementation and administration of executive com pensation and incentive programs. He received his J.D. from the OU College of Law in 2024. Hillary Stuart has joined the Tulsa office of GableGotwals as of counsel. She has nearly 15 years of litigation, government inves tigation and military experience. She advises clients and handles matters involving white-collar crimes, corporate investigations, cybersecurity and data privacy, administrative and regulatory law, employment law and governmen tal compliance. Before joining the firm, she served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Western District of Washington and the district’s military liaison. Ms. Stuart is a major in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

Ethan T. Mock has joined the Tulsa office of GableGotwals as of counsel. He has experience in oil and gas lease processing and title examination, administrative appeals and tribal and federal reg ulatory compliance. Before joining the firm, Mr. Mock worked for the Eastern Oklahoma Regional Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where he supervised oil and gas leasing operations across the region, including new lease approvals, assignments and permitting. He oversaw com pliance with federal regulations and the National Environmental Policy Act, and he communi cated directly with the Bureau of Land Management, the Office of Natural Resources Revenue and the Bureau of Trust Fund Administration on regulatory and royalty matters. He also drafted administrative appeal decisions related to oil and gas leasing and surface and subsurface use issues. Ryan Heatherman has joined the Tulsa office of GableGotwals as a shareholder. He focuses on busi ness issues, estate planning and a broad range of litigation matters. Mr. Heatherman began his career as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he prosecuted courts-martial as a trial counsel, including numerous jury trials to verdict. Following his mili tary service, he served as general counsel of a Tulsa-based oil and gas company before founding a lit igation law firm. He later returned to public service as an assistant U.S. attorney, where he held sev eral leadership roles, including

She currently serves as a command judge advocate, advising command teams on criminal actions, admin istrative law, government compli ance, the Freedom of Information Act, employment law and national security law. She also oversees legal reviews and investigations of civilian and active-duty employ ment law issues, equal opportunity cases and sexual harassment com plaints. During her nearly 10-year active-duty military career, she was a defense attorney, prosecutor, administrative law attorney and claims attorney. Sanford C. Coats has joined the Norris Law Firm in Oklahoma City as a partner. He has experience in trial practice, litigation and priv ileged investigations. Mr. Coats formerly served as the presiden tially appointed and U.S. Senate confirmed U.S. attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. Most recently, he served as senior coun sel and site director at the Boeing Co. In that role, Mr. Coats led and supported the Boeing Oklahoma City site, consisting of over 3,400 employees, provided legal counsel for several domestic and inter national programs, led internal investigations across the Boeing enterprise and worked with the compliance team under a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. He received his J.D. from the OU College of Law. Mr. Coats is involved with several community and professional organizations, including as a trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.

86 | OCTOBER 2025

THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL