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The Texas Lawbook

Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury

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Chris Vognar

Lawyers, Guns and Money: An occasional series on movies, TV and other stories about lawyers and the law — Juror #2 (2024, Dir. Clint Eastwood)

A man is picked for jury duty. He seems like a solid enough fellow, maybe a little melancholy, and more handsome than most, because he’s played by Nicholas Hoult, whose eyes are an almost impossibly bright shade of blue. He shows up the first day of the trial and a look of panic plays out across his face. It seems he might have done something in his past that could have direct bearing on whether or not the defendant is found guilty. If he comes forward, he might end up behind bars himself.

January 1, 2025 Chris Vognar

Lawyers, Guns and Money: An occasional series on movies, TV and other stories about lawyers and the law — Liar Liar (1997, Dir. Tom Shadyac)

Liar Liar, the 1997 Jim Carrey comedy about a dishonest man whose son makes a birthday wish condemning his dad to tell the truth for 24 hours, could have been about a doctor. Or a sanitation worker. Or a restaurateur. But what fun would any of that be? No, Carrey’s Fletcher Reede had to be a lawyer, because in the public imagination lawyers lie — constantly, for a living, without shame.

December 31, 2024 Chris Vognar

Lawyers, Guns and Money: An occasional series on movies, TV and other stories about lawyers and the law — 12 Angry Men (1957, Dir. Sidney Lumet)

One is an unrepentant racist. Another is filled with rage for his grown son. There’s the guy who has Yankees tickets burning a hole in his pocket. There’s an ad man, a stockbroker, a proud immigrant and a blue collar working man. And there’s the stoic architect — the one who actually wants to hear everyone out, who takes his responsibility as a juror with the seriousness appropriate when a defendant’s life is at stake. Sixty-seven years after its release, 12 Angry Men remains an explosive drama of small-scale democracy, bottled up in a jury room where individual prejudices and passions gradually coalesce into a collective voice.

December 26, 2024 Chris Vognar

Lawyers, Guns and Money: An occasional series on movies, TV and other stories about lawyers and the law — Young Mr. Lincoln  (1939, Dir. John Ford) 

A tall, folksy man in a stovepipe hat rides into town on a mule, looking to get his law practice off the ground. He quickly ingratiates himself to the community, making fast friends and even judging a pie contest at the county fair (where he also wins a rail-splitting contest, naturally). Like a good lawyer, or perhaps just a hungry lawyer, he weighs his pie duties carefully, going back and forth between the peach and the apple, steadily gobbling down both. He’s a man of the people, and soon he’ll become a rather impromptu defense attorney in a murder trial.

December 24, 2024 Chris Vognar

Lawyers, Guns and Money: An occasional series on movies, TV and other stories about lawyers and the law — Dark Waters (2019, Dir. Todd Haynes)

Todd Haynes has made an homage to ‘50s melodrama (Far From Heaven), a lesbian love story based on a Patricia Highsmith novel (Carol) and a boldly prismatic study of Bob Dylan (I’m Not There), among other movies. Regardless of subject, there’s always something a little unstable at the core of his films, something bordering on horror without actually crossing into that realm. Haynes is a poet of isolation and distance, an acute conveyor of loneliness that threatens to bleed into something more tragic.

This quality permeates Dark Waters, Haynes’ 2019 legal drama based on the true story of Rob Bilott, an environmental lawyer who made it his mission to hold DuPont accountable for poisoning the people of West Virginia with chemical waste in the local water supply.

September 27, 2024 Chris Vognar

Lawyers, Guns and Money: An occasional series on movies, TV and other stories about lawyers and the law — And Justice for All (1979, Dir. Norman Jewison)

The overstuffed but strangely compelling 1979 legal drama starring Al Pacino begins with the voice of a child reading the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s a sardonic start to a barbed, furious, free-swinging indictment of a legal system that, the movie suggests, has gone off the rails. Up is down, black is white, left is right. 

A lone Baltimore defense attorney, Pacino’s Arthur Kirkland, is among the only people upset by what he sees. And make no mistake, he’s plenty upset.

August 30, 2024 Chris Vognar

Lawyers, Guns and Money: An occasional series on movies, TV and other stories about lawyers and the law —The Verdict (1982, Dir. Sidney Lumet)

Frank Galvin is a mess. A drunken has-been of a lawyer, disillusioned by past failures and the corruption that plagues the justice system, he whiles away his time drinking whiskey and playing pinball at his favorite Boston bar. When Frank takes a case all but guaranteed to yield a fat settlement — a Catholic hospital gave a pregnant woman the wrong anesthetic, rendering her a vegetative state, and the diocese wants the whole thing to go away — he sees dollar signs spinning before his eyes. But then something happens.

July 19, 2024 Chris Vognar

Lawyers, Guns and Money: Quiz Show — An Occasional Series on Movies, TV and Other Stories About Lawyers and the Law

In this installment of Lawyers, Guns and Money, veteran entertainment writer Chris Vognar reviews Quiz Show, the 1994 movie directed by Robert Redford starring Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes and John Turturro.

May 20, 2024 Chris Vognar

Movie Review: Clemente is a Fitting Tribute to Baseball’s ‘Great One’

When Roberto Clemente made it to “the show” in 1955, sportswriters and baseball card manufacturers took to calling him “Bob” — not out of informality but because they felt the need to deracinate his name and his appeal. Baseball was still decades away from the days when every big league roster became stocked with Latin players, and the Puerto Rican phenom posed some sort of threat to the established (white American) order. Those same writers would quote Clemente by denoting his thick accent — for example, “heet” instead of “hit.” If Clemente sometimes seemed to have a chip on his shoulder, it’s not difficult to see why. The man bluntly and accurately nicknamed The Great One is now the subject of an affectionate and thorough documentary, simply called Clemente, that premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in March. (Photo credit: Les Banos)

April 19, 2024 Chris Vognar

Lawyers, Guns and Money: Roman J. Israel, Esq — An Occasional Series on Movies, TV and Other Stories About Lawyers and the Law 

The title character of Roman J. Israel, Esq. is a sort of walking anachronism, a man out of time in more ways than one. A civil rights lawyer who never entered the modern era, he rarely leaves his cluttered Los Angeles office, preferring to let his much smoother partner operate as the firm’s public face. His boxy suits and unkempt hair suggest a man who doesn’t care a lot about what others think. Then his partner dies suddenly, leaving his cases to a well-coiffed (and white) pragmatist. Roman decides he might just want a piece of the pie. And he’s willing to make some very bad decisions to get it.

March 15, 2024 Chris Vognar

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Features

  • P.S. — Attorneys Serving the Community Raises More Than $586K for POETIC, Voting Rights Act Commemorated - In this edition of P.S., Attorneys Serving the Community announced it raised more than $586K for POETIC, a nonprofit helping youth survivors of exploitation, with over $60,000 coming from its sold-out annual luncheon featuring Elizabeth Smart. Meanwhile, the Dallas Bar Association and J.L. Turner Legal Association are preparing to honor the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act with a special program featuring civil rights leaders and legal experts. June 20, 2025Krista Torralva

GCs, Lawyers & Firms

  • Veteran Houston Partner Jumps from Latham to Simpson - Bryce Kaufman spent nearly 12 years in the Houston offices of Latham, specializing in multilayered financial transactions. He joins Simpson Thacher's growing Houston office to focus on energy and infrastructure to help clients seeking financing solutions.
  • Skadden Hires Two M&A Partners from White & Case
  • V&E Adds Three Partners: Two from Kirkland, One from Baker Botts
  • Houston Texans Associate GC Jumps to Munsch Hardt
  • Gray Reed Hires Longtime Houston Exec to Lead Operations and Growth
  • Sorrels Law Adds Trial, Appellate Partner in Dallas
  • Holland & Knight’s Recent Lateral Partner Additions Strengthen RE, Financial Services Offerings
  • Rice Taps Munck Wilson Attorney to be Associate Athletic Director
  • Veteran Energy Lawyer Christopher Richardson to join Paul Hastings
  • Troutman Pepper Locke Snags Two Key Houston PE Partners
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Lawyers in the News

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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

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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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