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Dress Rehearsal: Business Court Case Settles Before Heading to Jury - What would have been the first jury trial for the Texas Business Court became a dress rehearsal instead. Counsel met for a pretrial hearing Friday, planning to begin the jury trial on Monday. They reached a settlement Saturday night. January 13, 2026
Longtime Plaintiff Lawyer Joins Hamilton Wingo - After spending years as a trial lawyer for hire, Mike Kaeske has joined Hamilton Wingo. Together, the firm’s founder, Chris Hamilton, and Kaeske have helped clients secure more than $10 billion in verdicts and settlements as lead counsel in cases involving serious personal injuries, wrongful deaths and business disputes. January 12, 2026
Litigation Roundup: Acer Hits AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile with Infringement Claims - In this edition of Litigation Roundup, an East Texas scammer who prosecutors said lied about representing the late Major League Baseball player Pete Rose and about owning cannabis dispensaries in Las Vegas is sentenced to prison, and the decision of a Collin County jury in a dispute between a landlord and a tenant over a rat infestation is undone by a Dallas appellate court. January 12, 2026
Energy Transfer Sues Blackstone, Alleges Aiding and Abetting Fraud - Dallas-based Energy Transfer claims Blackstone directed its portfolio company EagleClaw Midstream Ventures to maximize the volumes of natural gas that it delivered into a joint venture pipeline, even if it meant diverting volumes Energy Transfer was contractually entitled to receive first. The lawsuit was filed in Reeves County. January 12, 2026
CDT Roundup: Slow Start, Big Punch: 18 Deals, Nearly $9B - For the first full week of 2026, the CDT Roundup saw 18 transactions with a reported total value of nearly $9 billion (specifically $8.958 billion), the majority of which from just three deals. About a dozen firms circled back in early January with private equity or private investment deals that closed in mid-December.
And since we're closing the books on 2025, let's pause for a brief look at the numbers specific to The Roundup in this week's edition. January 11, 2026
And since we're closing the books on 2025, let's pause for a brief look at the numbers specific to The Roundup in this week's edition. January 11, 2026
Corporate Cosmos: Texas Lawyers Navigate Record Billion-Dollar Deals Year - When Johnny Carson used to parody astronomer Carl Sagan on The Tonight Show, he’d stretch out the words “billions and billions” to accentuate the astronomer’s Mid-Atlantic delivery. The line became so famous that many people assumed Sagan said it.
He never did.
Yet Sagan, with some humor about it, leaned into the myth, even later calling one of his books Billions & Billions as a nod to Carson’s cosmic exaggeration.
Now we have to borrow the phrase again. Not to describe galaxies or particles of star stuff, but to capture the sheer scale of billion-dollar-plus deals handled by Texas lawyers last year. January 8, 2026
He never did.
Yet Sagan, with some humor about it, leaned into the myth, even later calling one of his books Billions & Billions as a nod to Carson’s cosmic exaggeration.
Now we have to borrow the phrase again. Not to describe galaxies or particles of star stuff, but to capture the sheer scale of billion-dollar-plus deals handled by Texas lawyers last year. January 8, 2026
Texas is First to Step Away from ABA Bar Admission Standards - The Texas Supreme Court released an order this week stating it will no longer rely on the American Bar Association accreditation to determine which law schools’ students can sit for the bar exam. Right now, all ABA-accredited law schools are on the list, but non-accredited schools could be added depending on what the justices decide. Law firm leaders and law school deans weighed in on the change. January 8, 2026
Asked & Answered with A&O Shearman’s Billy Marsh: Five Generations of Practicing Law - In this edition of Asked & Answered, A&O Shearman partner Billy Marsh discusses trends he’s seeing in shareholder, securities and mass tort litigation. He also talks about what it was like as a first-year associate to defend the NFL against fraud claims brought by a group of fans. January 7, 2026Centerpiece
‘What Could Be Better?’: The Scratch-Golfer PGA Deputy GC Who Turned Passion into Profession - Ted Koehler has his dream job. And maybe yours.
He's a near-scratch golfer (a 0.90 handicap at the moment), a game he learned from his father. He makes his living advising the Professional Golfers' Association of America, the premier organization for more than 30,000 PGA professionals nationwide.
He gets to attend events like the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup. And because he's involved in their planning, it could be regarded as a job requirement. He gets to play some of the best golf courses in the world.
If dream jobs were golf balls, Koehler's has the feel of a 375-yard tee shot airmailed from a titanium driver, fairway-flush on the Par Five of Life.
As deputy general counsel in the PGA's three-attorney legal department, Koehler has been nominated by The Texas Lawbook and the DFW Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel as 2026 Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Practice. January 13, 2026
Another Billion-Dollar Win for Keurig Dr Pepper, Another Nomination for Business Litigation of the Year - Two years ago, Stephen Cole reflected on his career as the vice president and assistant general counsel of Keurig Dr Pepper and was confident his best day at the company came after a summary judgment ruling resulted in a $925 million win against competitors Coca-Cola and BodyArmor.
But Cole, now a five-year veteran of KDP, has stayed busy ever since.
In July, the company’s legal team, along with outside counsel at Kirkland & Ellis, defeated a lawsuit from Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling that had been seeking more than $1 billion in damages over the ending of an agreement that had allowed Reyes to distribute Dr Pepper/Seven Up in California and Nevada.
Because of this work, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Cole a finalist for the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year. January 12, 2026
Expert Voices
Adapt or Be Replaced — The Future of In‑House Law in the Age of AI - When AI is embedded into daily workflows, processes such as contract review, compliance monitoring, risk analysis and knowledge management stop being bottlenecks and become sources of strategic leverage. That shift frees our teams to spend time where human judgment matters most. This article offers a practical roadmap for GCs: how to adopt AI safely, how to train people effectively and how to redesign processes with AI at the core — so the legal team can be a force multiplier for the business, not a brake. January 7, 2026
My Five Favorite Books: Conrad Hester - Whether it’s the psychological depth of Dostoyevsky or the lyrical observations of Annie Dillard, I’m drawn to stories that linger long after the final page. These books aren’t just entertaining; they are challenging but ultimately reward the time investment with illuminations on what it means to exist in our world. They’re the kind of books that make you think harder, feel deeper, and read slower. January 7, 2026
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, 2025
