© 2014 The Texas Lawbook.
By Brooks Igo
Staff Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(June 5) – After leaving Houston 10 years ago to manage Vinson & Elkins’ New York office, Walter Stuart is making a homecoming, the firm announced Tuesday. The litigator and former firm leader said he and his wife always thought they would return to Texas at some point.
“I’m back home,” said Stuart, who was a partner for the past four years in the New York office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. “I love Texas and I love Vinson & Elkins.”
Stuart, who rejoins the firm as a partner, spent more than 20 years of his career at V&E. In addition to leading its New York office for a number of years, he has also served on the firm’s management committee.
The 67-year-old litigator has been busy. He has recently represented Hachette, the Paris-based publishing company, in its high profile eBook price fixing case against Amazon; an Irish bank in what Stuart calls a significant case for the international banking community that decided U.S. courts should not interfere with Ireland banking issues; and a senior independent director of BP in numerous securities cases resulting from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill which Stuart helped get dismissed.
Stuart said the cases he is working on are getting more complex and plaintiffs are becoming more sophisticated about financial matters.
“The key is how to make the complex simple,” he said. “You have to figure out how to explain the complex to the jury and the courts.”
In a recent pro bono matter with Freshfields, Stuart represented three Muslim prisoners at Rikers Island in New York City. His clients survived a standing objection after they contested they were entitled to worship at the prison and eat Halal foods, the group of foods permissible under Islamic Shariʻah. The case is still proceeding in federal court in New York.
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