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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, 2026Two Tapped by President Trump for Bench in WDTX - Andrew Davis, an Austin litigator who had served as a staffer on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and Judge Chris Wolfe, a Tarrant County trial judge since 2018, have been named to federal bench vacancies in Austin and Waco. January 7, 2026
Balch & Bingham Nearly Doubles Austin Presence with Duggins Wren Mann & Romero - Balch Managing Partner Stan Blanton said the firm “could not have found another group of lawyers who offer the expertise and talent” of Duggins Wren Mann & Romero, particularly in the electricity and gas sectors. January 6, 2026
Atlas Unplugged: In Houston Lawyer’s Collection, the Past Unfolds - In his corner office in downtown Houston, history hangs from every wall.
You don’t just see the maps. Centuries call out, empires rise (and fall) with each step you take in Joseph Ahmad’s office, where the past is still very much alive.
The collection of maps bleeds out into the hallways of the skyscraper floors that the law firm Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing occupies, jockeying for wall space alongside other works of art. January 6, 2026
Top 10 White-Collar Crime Cases of 2025 - Healthcare fraud prosecutions, many stemming from the pandemic, stood out among the biggest white-collar cases in Texas last year. January 6, 2026
Litigation Roundup: Lawyer Who Leaked Accused Priest’s Name to Reporter Can’t Shake $400K Sanction - In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a divided Fifth Circuit panel revives an excessive force lawsuit against a Lake Worth officer stemming from a 2021 fatal shooting, with the judges sharply criticizing each other in their opinions, and a husband and wife in Fort Worth admit guilt in a custom home building scam that defrauded 40 victims out of about $4.8 million. January 5, 2026
Agency Recommends $9.6M in Fines for Houston-based Midstream for 2022 Deepwater Spill - The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Monday that it is recommending a fine of more than $9.6 million against a Houston-based company for a November 2023 deepwater oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. The penalty is the result of an investigation by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safe Administration and the recommended levy of $9,622,054 is described as the "largest civil penalty ever proposed" by the agency. January 5, 2026
Centerpiece
Children’s Health Assoc. GC Kathleen Benner’s ‘Impact will be Felt for Years to Come’ - Kathleen Benner’s first job out of college, armed with a marketing degree, was traveling between manufacturing facilities to sell corrugated boxes.
“After about a year, I decided that if I wanted a more respectable and sustainable environment, I’d need a career change,” she told The Texas Lawbook.
Benner went to a bookstore and bought a book about whether to seek an MBA or a JD. “I didn’t even know what a JD was, but I read the book in one day and decided to go to law school,” she said. “That decision was validated almost immediately.”
Now the associate general counsel at Children’s Health System of Texas, Benner has been named as one of two finalists for the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department (six to 20 attorneys) by The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Lawbook. January 9, 2026
Brinker’s Cam Turner: Father’s Wrongful Imprisonment Inspires Legal Excellence - Cameasha Turner was in the third grade when her mother told her the story of her father's wrongful conviction and life-prison sentence. “It was truly a life-altering moment for me. My dad was 18 when he was wrongfully convicted," Turner told The Texas Lawbook. "Hearing that as a child was heavy. I didn’t know how to process the shame or the hurt, but I did know one thing: It wasn’t right. Wanting justice for my dad is what sparked it, but understanding the power of education is what carried me the rest of the way."
More than two decades later, Cam Turner is corporate counsel at Dallas-based Brinker where she is making major decisions and achieving significant successes on the operations of the multibillion-dollar hospitality company whose restaurant brands include Chili’s and Maggiano’s Little Italy. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Lawbook have named Turner as a finalist for the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year, which is awarded to counsel who have been in-house for three years or less. January 9, 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
