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Litigation Roundup: Settlements Reached in Several FCA Cases  - In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Marathon Oil takes a $46.5 million hit on appeal, an Austin doctor agrees to pay $13.6 million to settle five False Claims Act cases and a few Paycheck Protection Program fraud cases are adjudicated as well.  December 29, 2025Michelle Casady
In AI Gold Rush, Capital Markets Learn to Live Off Data - In the shengxiao, the year 2025 was represented by the snake. As the sixth of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, the snake represents both mystery and transformation.

For capital markets lawyers that is exactly what 2025 was supposed to be, a year of pipeline deals, AI-driven demand and a new presidential administration primed to relieve public companies from the inordinate burdens associated with their public-ness.

Well, it was. And it wasn't.

It's been a busier year than those passed. But capital markets have changed and are changing. The yearly stats say so. And so do the lawyers who make their living assembling them. December 28, 2025Allen Pusey
CDT Roundup: Coal Gets Reprieve, Wind Gets Rejected in Quiet Week - Not much was reported for the holiday inflected week that ended Dec. 27. The Roundup saw only two transactions. Only one had a reported value.

However, one Houston-based utility got a Christmas week gift from the U.S. Department of Energy.

That and a bit more in this edition of CDT Roundup. December 28, 2025Jason Philyaw
Dallas-Based DOBS Gets $1.5B Verdict in Latest Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder Jury Trial  - Dallas-based Dean Omar Branham Shirley on Monday secured a $1.5 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson and other defendants in a jury trial in Baltimore, a figure which includes a whopping $1 billion in punitive damages assessed only against Johnson & Johnson.  December 22, 2025Michelle Casady
Litigation Roundup: Founder, CEO of McKinney Aerospace Company Named in Wrongful Discharge Case - In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a group of wildfire survivors, represented by Susman Godfrey, are awarded $62 million in damages by a jury in Oregon, federal indictments against the former executives of Dallas-based Tricolor are unsealed and the founder and CEO of an aerospace company in McKinney is accused by former executives he hired of firing them after they refused to commit a $1 million “theft.”  December 22, 2025Michelle Casady
Harbour Energy buys LLOG Exploration for $3.2B - Harbour Energy said Monday that it agreed to acquire Louisiana-based LLOG Exploration Co. for $3.2 billion, including $2.7 billion cash and $500 million of common stock, giving the U.K. oil company its first deepwater presence in the U.S. Bracewell advised Harbour with a team led by partners in London, Houston and Washington, D.C. December 22, 2025Jason Philyaw
Troutman Pepper Locke Leads Pro Bono Nuisance Suit Against Fort Worth Motel - A pair of Fort Worth residents face “imminent and irreparable harm” if the nuisance caused by a long-beleaguered motel is not stopped, a pro bono legal team from Troutman Pepper Locke and the Dallas-based nonprofit Advocates for Community Transformation are arguing in Tarrant County. The lawsuit, brought by two residents of the West Meadowbrook neighborhood, follows other suits brought by the city of Fort Worth and the state of Texas. December 22, 2025Krista Torralva
CDT Roundup: $10B Week Fueled by Fusion - For the week ended Dec. 20, The CDT Roundup saw 11 transactions reported with a total value of about $10.2 billion, which is roughly on par with the prior week's 15 deals for nearly $10 billion, though up from the 11 transactions at $3 billion this time last year. The week's top transactions and more in this edition of CDT Roundup. December 21, 2025Jason Philyaw

Centerpiece

John Nance Garner: The Texas Lawyer Who Was a Heartbeat Away - The famous saying that characterized the American vice presidency as “not worth a warm bucket of spit” was first uttered about 85 years ago. 

However, the man behind that famous aphorism is largely forgotten. Lost in the tranquility of history’s footnotes stands a West Texas frontier lawyer and judge whose impact extended far beyond the courtroom. He left a significant mark on the judicial, legislative and executive branches of America’s constitutional republic. That country lawyer from the southwest who became America’s 32nd vice president was John Nance Garner.

In this special feature for The Lawbook, historian and author James Lumley offers an important review of Garner’s 50-year legal and political career. December 24, 2025James Lumley
DFW Celebrates Two Legal In-house Rookies and a Lifetime Achiever - Elaine Rodriguez has been a corporate general counsel, including the past 14 years at DFW Airport, longer than Cameasha Turner and Nur Kara have been alive, but all three are being honored by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook.

ACC-DFW and The Lawbook are pleased to announce that Rodriguez is being recognized with the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Lifetime Achievement. Past DFW Lifetime Achievement Award recipients include Gary Kennedy of American Airlines, Leanne Oliver of PepsiCo, Chris Luna of T-Mobile, Derek Lipscombe of Toyota and Marita Covarrubias of Tenet Healthcare.

Turner, who is corporate counsel at Brinker International, and Kara, who is the legal director for marketing and advertising at PepsiCo North America, are the finalists for the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year. December 23, 2025Mark Curriden

Expert Voices

Top 10 Legal News for 2025 - In 2025, the Lone Star State was once again at the forefront of some of the biggest legal stories of the year. Join Androvett Legal Media & Marketing as we take a look back at the Top 10 Texas Legal Stories that shaped the past year. We start here with No. 10 thru 6, which includes sports battles in court and the Texas Business Court. December 29, 2025Androvett
Rethinking the Investor-Broker Relationship in Tokenized Real Estate Markets - Illiquidity has always been a feature (and a bug) of real estate transactions. That prime piece of retail space is one of a kind, and you can’t click “sell” on that multifamily asset the same way you can on a share of a blue-chip company. Tokenization is changing that premise by turning the economics of property ownership into fractional tradable units that can be bought or sold through digital exchanges at the touch of a button. This shift matters for corporate counsel because once something trades like a security, the market structure becomes an additional risk on top of the investment itself. December 29, 2025Daniella Main & Michael Thompson

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Stories You Might’ve Missed

  • The Legacy of Pennzoil v. Texaco 40 Years Later — The Civil Jury Trial of the Century - Pennzoil v. Texaco's legacy remains significant, as it changed how companies handle mergers and acquisitions, caused the Chamber of Commerce to designate Texas as a judicial hellhole in 1986 and directly led to two decades of massive tort reform efforts that dramatically limited the rights of Texans to sue businesses, doctors and insurance companies for wrongdoing. It also launched Texas trial lawyer Joe Jamail to national stardom and made him the richest trial lawyer in American history. In this in-depth article, The Texas Lawbook provides a detailed timeline of the events involved in the historic litigation, as well as comments from more than a dozen lawyers about the legal strategies employed. November 18, 2025Mark Curriden & Alexa Shrake

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