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Bruce Tomaso

Bruce Tomaso spent more than 30 years as a writer and editor at The Dallas Morning News. When asked what positions he held there, he usually says it’s easier to list those he didn’t.

As enterprise editor on The News’s breaking news desk in the summer of 2016, he played a key role in covering the downtown shooting spree that left five police officers dead. For its coverage, The News was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting.

He spent most of 1997 in Denver covering the federal criminal trials of Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Four years later, he covered McVeigh’s execution.

His first major reporting assignment for The Texas Lawbook was a retrospective on the 20th anniversary of the $119.6 million verdict for 10 young men who’d been molested as children by Rudy Kos, a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Dallas. The stories earned Bruce and his Lawbook editor, Allen Pusey, the Dallas Bar Association’s 2018 Stephen Philbin Award for Feature Writing.

In 2019, he covered the seven-week medical fraud trial of nine physicians, healthcare executives and others associated with Forest Park Medical Center, a now-defunct Dallas surgical hospital.

He’s a member of the Alumni Hall of Fame at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He and his wife, Dallas attorney Patricia A. Nolan, have one grown son, who is smarter than either of them.

He will drop everything, including preposterous sums of money, to see Lady Gaga, Notre Dame football, or the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team.

You can reach Bruce at bruce.tomaso@texaslawbook.net.

Houston Trial Begins Over Wage Claim by ‘Unhinged’ Former Berg & Androphy Lawyer

Plaintiff Justin Pfeiffer says he’s owed $32,000 plus legal fees stemming from his 2018 resignation from the Houston law firm. Berg & Androphy says Pfeiffer is a “vexatious litigant” who “harasses all whom he claims have wronged him.”

November 6, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

Pharma Marketer Guilty in $60 Million Fraud and Kickback Scheme

Quintan Cockerell was paid millions to steer doctors to write expensive, often needless, prescriptions to two Fort Worth pharmacies, federal investigators said. After a week of testimony and four days of deliberations, a jury in the court of U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer agreed on Thursday.

October 26, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

‘Marketing’ or ‘Bribery’? Closing Arguments in Federal Pharma Fraud Trial in Dallas

The defense lawyer for Quintan Cockerell says he did nothing illegal by telling doctors they should consider using the costly medications prepared by 2 pharmacies that paid Cockerell millions of dollars. The government says he was taking kickbacks for inducing doctors to send prescriptions to the pharmacies.

October 17, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

Ex-Wife of Pharmacy Marketer Testifies She Was Paid Lavishly for Doing Nothing

Kristin Najarian said her former husband, Quintan Cockerell, arranged for her to be put on the payroll of a Fort Worth pharmacy that, according to federal prosecutors, paid Cockerell millions of dollars in kickbacks. In one month alone, she said, she was paid $711,706.47 even though “I wasn’t working there.”

October 12, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

Pharmacy Marketer Accused of Taking Kickbacks in Criminal Trial

The co-owner of two Fort Worth pharmacies testified in federal court that Quintan Cockerell made “millions a month” by steering doctors to send in thousands of prescriptions for costly compounded medicines.

October 12, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

Fifth Circuit Overturns Dallas Judge’s Order Boosting Former NFL Player’s Disability Benefits

The appellate court praised U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer for casting light on the NFL retirement plan’s “disregard of players’ rights” and its “lopsided system aggressively stacked against disabled players.” But, it said, former running back Michael Cloud was not entitled, under the plan’s rules, to the increase in benefits that Judge Scholer ordered.

October 9, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

Texas Securities Board Calls Investment Firm Claiming Ties to Russian Oil Producers a Ponzi Scheme

In a cease-and-desist order, state regulators bar BigWhale.io and two individuals based in the United Arab Emirates from offering unregistered, deceptive securities to Texans.

October 6, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

Fifth Circuit Upholds Forest Park Medical Center Convictions

An appellate panel rejects every ground raised by seven convicted defendants in one of the biggest medical fraud cases in Texas history.

October 2, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

‘The Ticket’ Settles with Ex-Hosts McDowell and Kemp

The radio station’s owners sued the two broadcast celebrities, accusing them of violating their noncompete agreements by starting a sports-talk podcast shortly after quitting in July. U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer, presiding over the case, repeatedly encouraged to two sides to resolve their differences.

September 27, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

Judge Dropped the Ball by Upping Disabled Ex-Player’s Benefits, NFL Pension Plan Tells 5th Circuit

The league’s retirement plan is appealing a Dallas federal judge’s 2022 ruling in favor of former running back Michael Cloud, who said he was denied the benefits he deserved after concussions and other injuries cut his playing career short. The judge wrote that Cloud’s case fits a pattern by the pension plan of nickel-and-diming retired players “suffering from the devastating effects of severe head trauma.”

September 22, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

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Primary Sidebar

Features

  • P.S. — From Corporate Counsel to Clemency Crusader: Brittany K. Barnett’s Journey to Criminal Justice Reform - Last week, I had the honor of interviewing Brittany K. Barnett at the Texas General Counsel Forum Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter breakfast about her impressive legal career. Barnett’s start was in accounting. From there, she went to work as a corporate finance attorney and in-house M&A counsel. By night, she dedicated herself to pro bono efforts, working on President Barack Obama’s historic Clemency Project 2014. Barnett ultimately left her job and founded The Buried Alive Project, a powerful initiative to represent individuals sentenced to life without parole for nonviolent drug offenses. Her work has led to clemency for nearly two dozen clients across three presidential administrations. She’s also the author of a best-selling memoir, A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom, and she is working on a second book. I was so inspired by her story that I wanted to share our interview with a wider audience in this week's P.S. Column.  May 30, 2025Krista Torralva
  • 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards Celebration - More than 225 leaders of the corporate legal profession in Houston celebrated the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards, which recognized general counsel and senior managing counsel from companies ranging from Phillips 66 and Shell to Enbridge, Baker Hughes and Transocean. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook hosted 20 corporate in-house counsel who had been nominated for awards in 14 categories, from Rookie of the Year and Lifetime Achievement to M&A Transaction and Business Litigation of the Year. May 27, 2025Mark Curriden

GCs, Lawyers & Firms

  • Atma Kabad Moves from Kirkland to Gibson Dunn - While at Kirkland the capital markets partner worked with such clients as Orix, Marathon Oil, Kimmeridge Texas Gas and Omat Technologies.
  • Fisher Phillips Hires Reed Smith Partner to be Regional Managing Partner in Houston
  • President Names Career Prosecutor as NDTX U.S. Attorney
  • Megan Knell Joins Steptoe & Johnson
  • Kim Bueno Among Kirkland’s Litigation Haul from King & Spalding
  • O’Melveny Adds Experienced Trial Lawyer in Houston
  • Simpson Thacher Hires Project Finance Veteran
  • Womble Adds Veteran Biz Litigator in its Houston Office
  • Barnes & Thornburg Lands Veteran Louisiana Litigator for its Dallas Office
  • Condon Tobin Hires Team from Libby Sparks
More GCs, Lawyers & Firms

Lawyers in the News

Hover right to see full list

Reem Abdelrazik
Doug Bacon
Harry Beaudry
Jonathan Benloulou
Gene Besen
Doug Bland
Jacqui Bogucki
Vera De Brito de Gyarfas
David Buck
Nora Burke
T.J. Campbell
Wayne Chan
Michael Considine
Mogan Copher
James Cowen
Kevin Crews
Samantha Crispin
Dawud Crooms
Shamus Crosby
Clint Culpepper
Brock Degeyter
Nick Dhesi
William Eiland
Austin Elam
Miles Emery
Bill Finnegan
David Gail
Adam Garmezy
Sami Ghubril
Breen Haire
Kim Hicks
J. Dean Hinderliter
Nicole Islinger
James Johnston
Atma Kabad
John Kaercher
Erin Kaufman
Paul Kukish
Thomas Laughlin
Oscar Fernando Leija
Emily Lichtenheld
Rob Little
Ryan Logan
Bryan Loocke
Katy Lukaszewski
Ryan Lynch
Ryan Maierson
Benjamin J. Martin
Madeline McCune
Sean McFarlane
Richard McGee
Sarah McLean
Sameer Mohan
Andrew Monk
Charlie Ofner
Stephen Olson
Joe Orien
Zach Parker
John Pitts
Benjamin Potter
Brendan Quigley
Kevin Richardson
Alex Robertson
Jason Rocha
Julian Seiguer
Mark Sloan
Chad Smith
Lande Spottswood
John Stribling
Vanessa Sutherland
Tanner Sykes
Martha Todd
Michael Vardanian
Thomas Verity
Douglas Warner
Kyle Watson
Luke Weedon
John Wetwiska
Sean Wheeler
Debbie Yee

Firms in the News

Hover right to show full list

Akin
Baker Botts
Bracewell
Haynes Boone
Holland & Knight
Kirkland & Ellis
Latham & Watkins
Morgan Lewis
Pillsbury
Porter Hedges
Sheppard Mullin
Sidley
Simpson Thacher
V&E
Weil
White & Case
Willkie

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