Main Content
Top Stories
Centerpiece
Oil, One Lawyer and Only 64 Souls: Fifth Circuit Weighs in on Loving County’s War of Neighbors - A West Texas justice of the peace, sheriff and constable walked into a Fifth Circuit courtroom. No joke. This is the story of six residents of Loving County — together, they account for about one-tenth of the county’s total population — who took their decade-long political dispute over allegations of voter intimidation, jury fraud, “lawfare” and even cattle rustling and turned it into a billion-dollar civil rights litigation. Such is life in Loving County, population 64, but only one lawyer. (2021 file photo by David Goldman/AP) August 5, 2025
Texas Attorney Helps New Jersey Reach Potential $2B PFAS Settlement Mid-Trial - A Texas attorney served as lead counsel in what could be a $2 billion settlement in New Jersey with chemical giants DuPont, Chemours and Corteva, marking the largest environmental recovery for a single state’s claim in U.S. history, according to New Jersey officials. (File photo by Joshua A. Bickel/The Associated Press) August 4, 2025Expert Voices
Discretionary Denials 2.0 — The Litigator’s IPR Playbook Under the New PTAB Regime - In March, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued its “Interim Process for PTAB Workload Management” memorandum — quickly dubbed the “Workload Memo.” The memo resurrects and expands the PTAB’s discretion to deny institution for reasons that have little to do with the prior art. By July 31, the acting director had already logged 109 discretionary-denial decisions, signaling a tectonic shift. For petitioners who count on IPRs to stall infringement suits — and patent owners who must decide where to fight — the new regime demands a strategic overhaul. This article distills what has changed, why it matters and how litigators should adapt. August 7, 2025
Corporate Directors and Officers — Fiduciaries or Discretionaries? - I have enjoyed the privilege of being a chaired professor at Southern Methodist University for over 35 years. That’s a good run, which I hope to keep going for a long while. In teaching my corporate and securities law courses during that time, a key principle arises with frequency — namely, that corporate directors and officers are fiduciaries. These fiduciaries are charged with acting in their respective corporation’s best interests with due care and loyalty. If they fail to do so — according to the rhetoric — they will be held accountable and subject to liability exposure. But is this merely rhetoric without substantive content? Is the term fiduciary a misnomer? In my new book, I answer these questions with a resounding “yes.” August 4, 2025
Stories You Might’ve Missed
Report: Judge Gilstrap Again the King of Patent Litigation - Patent infringement litigation has mostly been on the decline across the U.S. for the past three years, but not in the Eastern District of Texas, which has re-established its courts as the preferred destination for disputes regarding patent infringement. A new report by legal analytics firm Lex Machina shows that U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap of Marshall was assigned 795 new patent lawsuits in 2024 — six times more than any other federal judge in the U.S. June 3, 2025
