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Former TV News Anchor Guilty in $300M Pandemic Loan Scam - Stephanie Hockridge and her husband, Nathan Reis, were indicted on federal fraud charges in connection with their efforts to help small businesses obtain forgivable loans under the Paycheck Protection Program. Tried before U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Hockridge was convicted of conspiracy Friday. Reis is scheduled for trial in August. June 20, 2025
Business Court Milestone: First Final Judgment is Entered in Primexx Energy, Blackstone Dispute - This week, the first contested final judgment in a case before the Texas Business Court was entered. Proponents of the new court argued it would provide an avenue for parties to obtain quick decisions in complex business disputes and Monday’s final judgment, issued just shy of eight months after the case was filed in the business court, seems to support that. June 18, 2025
Expert Voices
AI’s Role in Reviving Texas Jury Trials - Unfortunately, the steady decline of civil jury trials has shaped the litigation landscape in Texas and across the nation for decades. Although multiple factors contribute to this trend, the emergence of reliable artificial intelligence tools may offer a realistic path to reversing it. This article discusses research on AI in the courts, explains how generative and predictive systems could reinvigorate the Texas trial docket and proposes concrete steps for judges, law firms, corporate counsel and the Legislature to harness AI’s upside to increase jury trials and expand justice access. June 17, 2025
Anatomy of an Acquittal — Delayed Vindication - At the very end of the series Mad Men, the yoga instructor encourages his class, which includes the show’s protagonist, Don Draper, with the following words: “A new day. New ideas. A new you.” From the perspective of the defense team at least, that’s a fitting introduction to the retrial of United States v. Hamilton, which resulted last week in an acquittal on all charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and two substantive counts of bribery. In the retrial, the government tried precisely the same case it tried four years ago. And why not? That case resulted in a conviction on three of four charges, which led to an eight-year prison sentence imposed by the district court. June 16, 2025Thought Leadership: Mission Control for International Disputes — Houston’s Arbitration Advantage - With corporate America increasingly voting with its feet by relocating to Texas and its business-friendly legal climate, general counsel and international arbitration practitioners should freshly consider Houston’s merits as a U.S.-based seat for international arbitration. By all objective criteria, Houston boasts the infrastructure, expertise, and supporting legal framework to match the leading global arbitration centers. June 16, 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
