Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Krista Torralva covers pro bono, public service, and diversity matters in the Texas legal market.
Krista Torralva covers pro bono, public service, and diversity for the Texas Lawbook Foundation and The Texas Lawbook. Previously, she covered courts for The Dallas Morning News. Krista has spent the bulk of her decade-plus-long career covering criminal courts in Texas and Florida. Her reporting includes the high profile federal terrorism trial against the Pulse nightclub shooter’s widow in Orlando, which ended in a rare acquittal. Her civil courts coverage has included the long-winding Texas voter ID lawsuit, legal battles over local Covid-19 mandates and school board disputes. Krista's work has been recognized by the State Bar of Texas' Gavel Awards, the Texas Association Press Managing Editors, the National Headliner Awards program and various local chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists.
The daughter of a Naval officer, Krista grew up traveling every few years but calls Corpus Christi home and talks about the Texas Gulf Coast every chance she gets. She lives in Dallas’ North Oak Cliff with her husband, Fares Sabawi.
Krista graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington.
Dallas litigator Barrett Howell came to Blank Rome from Katten. Howell says the most significant trend he’s seeing in his white collar practice is the Department of Justice’s criminal health care fraud investigations and prosecutions.
The settlement between a gravel mining company and Sacramento County, California, is one of the largest ever in a business civil rights case nationwide, the Houston-based firm said.
Clay Mahaffey joined the Dallas-based firm after a 22-year run with the U.S. Department of Justice. He recently discussed his career, including a case that changed his perspective on attorney-client relationships, and why he made the move from DOJ with The Lawbook.
Christopher L. “Kit” Crumbley navigated unprecedented trials as an administrative judge on the U.S. Patent and Trial Appeal Board beginning in 2012, as the America Invents Act went into effect. He said he left the bench in pursuit of his “next challenge.”
Houston lawyer George Fleming says Texas law should bring an end to the claims of thousands of his former clients by analyzing “privity,” or the existence of a legally binding relationship between them, under standards articulated both in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Taylor v. Sturgell and Section 40 of the Restatement of Judgments. SCOTX justices heard arguments Tuesday and had plenty of questions.
Allyson Ho called her husband, Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho, with exciting news: She’ll get to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court, her fifth time before the high court. He looked up the case and discovered SCOTUS was also taking on a case he’d drawn attention to.
Recent laws are creating a more worker-friendly environment, panelists said at a CLE program for the DFW chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel.
Kostura, a leading expert on subrogation and liens, calls herself “a plaintiff's lawyer through and through.” She was instrumental in creating a 2013 Texas health insurance reform law.
Fowler’s experience raising unprecedented constitutional issues in federal courts will enhance McKool Smith’s growing appellate practice, the firm says.
The sellers of a gas gathering company in far West Texas seek more than $100 million from Energy Transfer for a breach of contract. Energy Transfer says the agreement was a scheme to collect a $93 million check and should be nullified.
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