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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.

Royal Furgeson, DBA’s 2023 MLK Justice Award Recipient: ‘As Lawyers, Equal Justice Is Central to Our Very Being’

On Monday, Royal Furgeson, retired federal judge and founding dean of the UNT Dallas College of Law, received the Dallas Bar Association’s 2023 Martin Luther King Jr. Justice Award. In his acceptance speech, Judge Furgeson talked about the special duty of lawyers to carry on King’s work. Read the full text exclusively here.

January 17, 2023 Bruce Tomaso

‘Medical Emergency’ Forces Mistrial in Oft-Delayed $158M Pharmacy Fraud Case

After eight aborted settings since 2017, the trial on bribery and kickback charges was under way in Dallas when a defense lawyer needed surgery. Rather than resuming after a monthlong delay — and making jurors work through the holidays — U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay rescheduled the trial for next September.

December 29, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Dallas Jury Rules for Defendants in Wrongful Death Suit by Family of Electrocuted Worker

On their second day of deliberation, jurors in the court of state District Judge Monica McCoy Purdy awarded damages of $3.94 million to the family of electrician Gabriel Vela, who was killed in 2019 while working at a West Texas midstream energy plant. However, because the jury found Vela 51 percent responsible for his death, the defendants will not be liable. Bruce Tomaso reports.

November 15, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Wrongful Death Suit Over Worker’s Electrocution is a Grab for a ‘Champagne and Caviar Lifestyle,’ Defense Lawyer Says

In closing arguments, attorneys for a West Texas midstream gas facility say electrician Gabriel Vela died because of his own negligence. A plaintiff’s attorney counters that the gas plant’s conduct was ‘the grossest of gross negligence’ he’s seen in 34 years of practice.

November 14, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Federal Judge’s $3.64M Verdict Doesn’t Quell Long, Bitter Litigation Between Legal Recruiters

Since U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled that Evan P. Jowers improperly poached business from his former boss, Robert E. Kinney, Jowers has filed a new lawsuit in Florida and a motion for a protective order, alleging that Kinney threatened his family. Kinney, in turn, is seeking sanctions against Jowers and his current and former lawyers.

November 14, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Worker’s Electrocution Blamed on Multiple Failures at West Texas Midstream Plant

In opening statements in state court in Dallas, lawyers for the family of Gabriel Vela say EnLink Midstream cut corners in its rush to expand the plant. Defense lawyers say Vela’s actions led to his death.

November 1, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Alleged Kickbacks in Pharmacy Fraud Trial Were Legitimate Loans to Doctors, Defense Lawyers Contend

In opening statements, the defense attorneys tell jurors in Dallas their clients did not write thousands of bogus prescriptions, for which the government was billed $196 million, as a federal indictment contends.

October 20, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Biden Nominates Three for U.S. Attorney Slots in Texas

Long-awaited nominations are in to lead prosecutions for the Northern, Southern and Western Districts of Texas. Two of the nominees are veteran federal prosecutors; the third was El Paso’s DA for 27 years. Still to come: a nominee as U.S. attorney in the Eastern District. Bruce Tomaso has the details.

October 14, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

$158M Healthcare Fraud Trial Starts in Dallas Next Week

Long delayed by COVID, the trial involves what federal authorities say is a $158 million scam by doctors and pharmacies to bill a government workers’ insurance program for fraudulent, ultra-costly prescriptions.

October 13, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

Texas Supreme Court Weighs Meaning of ‘Double Fractions’ in Ancient Oil-and-Gas Agreements

In one case alone, $50 million in disputed royalties are at stake. And that could be just the tip of the iceberg.

October 11, 2022 Bruce Tomaso

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Features

  • P.S. — Raising the Bar: Lawyers Fight Food Insecurity, Support Veterans and More  - In this week’s P.S. Column, the Dallas-area legal community is recognized for raising more than $145,000 and donating nearly half a ton of food to the North Texas Food Bank through the annual Food from the Bar campaign, with top-performing firms honored at a recent awards celebration. In Houston, Bracewell and Cheniere Energy recently worked a free legal clinic at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, assisting 23 veterans with challenges such as housing disputes. Meanwhile, Kirkland & Ellis and AlixPartners have launched the first-ever Knock Out the Need blood drive to address summer shortages. Other notable updates include nonprofit board appointments, scholarship awards and Communities Foundation of Texas presenting its 2025 Vester Hughes Award to Holland & Knight’s David Rosenberg.  June 6, 2025Krista Torralva
  • New UT Law Grads Make Courtroom Debut in Federal Appeals Arguments - In their career debuts, two newly minted University of Texas law school graduates and incoming Kirkland & Ellis associates faced pointed judicial questioning from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in a prison conditions case. Gabrielle Olubanke Howells and Lizeth Badillo Garcia spoke with The Texas Lawbook about rising to the rare occasion of presenting oral arguments in a federal appeals case before even taking the bar exam.  June 5, 2025Krista Torralva

GCs, Lawyers & Firms

  • Bracewell Partner Becomes Shareholder in Greenberg Traurig’s Houston, New York Offices - A former Bracewell labor and employment partner joins global law firm Greenberg Traurig as a shareholder in the firm’s Houston and New York offices. The firm’s leaders say the addition is part of its strategic growth.
  • Bradley Hires Former EVP, CLO of Texas Regional Bank
  • Dell Technologies In-house Counsel Joins Yetter Coleman IP Group
  • Atma Kabad Moves from Kirkland to Gibson Dunn
  • Fisher Phillips Hires Reed Smith Partner to be Regional Managing Partner in Houston
  • Gibson Dunn Partner Launches Solo Dallas Firm to ‘Reengineer Litigation Models for Businesses’
  • 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
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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