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The Texas Lawbook

Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury

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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.

‘I Wanted Him Gone,’ Berg & Androphy Co-Founder Testifies in Suit by Ex-Associate

David Berg says Justin Pfeiffer, who has sued for $32,000 in back pay, was “not trustworthy and an embarrassment” to Berg’s firm. Pfeiffer claims he wasn’t “fully relieved” of his duties at Berg & Androphy until November 2018, two months after he agreed to resign, when he filed a motion to withdraw as counsel in California in cases where he was a lawyer of record, and that motion was granted.

November 8, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

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

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Features

  • P.S. — CLE on Assisting Flood Survivors, Lawyers Join TCU Advisory Board and Inspiring Future Attorneys - In this edition of P.S., our thoughts remain with the victims and survivors of the Hill Country floods. It’s clear that the legal community feels the same — attorneys across the region are stepping up with meaningful efforts to help. We highlight some of those initiatives here. You’ll also find news about a new group of advisory board members for Texas Christian University’s AddRan College of Liberal Arts, which now includes a handful of lawyers. Plus, Haynes Boone attorneys team up with Communities in Schools of Central Texas to inspire the next generation of legal professionals. July 18, 2025Krista Torralva
  • ACC San Antonio Ethics Award Winner Vincent R. Johnson Reflects on Legal Reform from Watergate to Today - Vincent R. Johnson was an aspiring lawyer when the Watergate scandal was unfolding. Disciplinary proceedings were brought against more than 20 lawyers for misconduct including obstruction of justice and violation of campaign laws, and “it was embarrassing to be a lawyer at that point in time,” Johnson said. But there was no doubt in Johnson’s mind that he wanted to be an attorney. As the ethics professor retires from St. Mary’s University School of Law this year, the Association of Corporate Counsel San Antonio chapter has honored him with its prestigious Lee Cusenbary Ethical Life and Leadership Award. Pictured: Johnson with Lauren Valkenaar at the St. Mary's Alumni Luncheon in June. July 17, 2025Krista Torralva

GCs, Lawyers & Firms

  • Willkie Continues to Expand its Dallas Office with Veteran Dealmakers - Willkie Farr & Gallagher continues to expand the Dallas office it opened a year ago, this time by hiring three veteran private equity dealmakers as partners, the firm announced Tuesday. The move by the trio of transactional lawyers — Jesse Betts, Jessica Hammons and Nathan Meredith — bolsters Willkie’s corporate & financial services vertical and its PE, M&A and capital markets capabilities. 
  • FBFK Adds Two Lawyers to its Austin Office
  • Beck Redden Bolsters Appellate Group With Hire From Troutman Pepper Locke
  • McGuireWoods Names Tyler VanHoutan as New Houston Office Managing Partner
  • Former Texas Solicitor Aaron Nielson: ‘Kirkland is the Perfect Place for Me’
  • Reed Smith Beefs Up Global Regulatory Enforcement Group, Hires V&E Partner 
  • Rey Anaya Valencia Begins Deanship at South Texas College of Law Houston
  • Willkie Adds Blake Winburne to its Houston Office
  • Hines CLO Joins Greenberg Traurig in Houston
  • Thomas Verity Vaults to Norton Rose Fulbright
More GCs, Lawyers & Firms

Lawyers in the News

Hover right to see full list

Barry Barnett
Wes Bearden
Emily Westridge Black
Michael Burke
Alicia Campbell
John Campbell
Madeleine Carpenter
Alexander Clark
Dawn Pittman Collins
Richard Finneran
Elizabeth Freeman
David Gail
Elizabeth Gibson
David Jones
Frank Lopez
Abbe Lowell
Neal Manne
Billy Marsh
Tom Melsheimer
Tasha Moser
Justin Nelson
Reed O'Connor
Kate Pennartz
John “J.” Pieratt
Danielle Reyes
Christopher Richardson
Randy Sorrels
Harry Susman
Larry Vincent
Victor Vital
Brent Walker
Matt Weybrecht
Melody Wilkinson
Alex Wolens

Firms in the News

Hover right to show full list

A&O Shearman
Bryan Cave
Cozen O'Connor
Haynes Boone
Holland & Knight
Jackson Walker
King & Spalding
Kirkland & Ellis
Law Office of Liz Freeman
Paul Hastings
Porter Hedges
Sorrels Law
Susman Godfrey
Toyota
Troutman Pepper Locke
Willkie
Vinson & Elkins
Weil
Winston & Strawn

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