V&E Wins $31M IP Defense Verdict for HTC
(May 14) – An East Texas jury on Friday threw out claims that HTC Corp. infringed on a former U.S. government rocket scientists’ patent on user interface and infrared universal remote control technology.
Texas Jury Awards $166M in Murder-for-Hire Case
A Fort Worth jury slapped a $166 million judgment against the daughter and son-in-law of a North Texas woman who was killed in 2014 for the proceeds of life insurance policies totaling $5 million.
Houston Appeals Court Reverses $17M Baylor Drowning Verdict
© 2018 The Texas Lawbook. By Natalie Posgate (May 4) – A Houston appellate court has tossed out a $17 million jury negligence verdict against subsidiary of Baylor University’s general
Remaining Named Gruber Hail Partners Land at New Firms
© 2018 The Texas Lawbook. By Natalie Posgate and Mark Curriden (May 3) – Gruber Hail Johansen Shank was never a huge firm in terms of lawyers, peaking at about
SBOT Election 2018: The Insiders, the Outsiders & the “I Don’t Care’s”
Election season at the State Bar of Texas ends today. The campaign has inspired a clash that has been full of sound and fury. The question is whether it actually means anything. As former bar president W. Frank Newton notes: “Some very smart people – lawyers who are very gifted – ought to know better than fool themselves into thinking that this is all terribly important.” Natalie Posgate has the story.
Swiss Deportee to File Claims Against his Lawyers, Federal Marshal for Malpractice, ‘Entrapment’
A Swiss businessman may soon be filing a malpractice lawsuit against the federal public defenders who represented him in a criminal bankruptcy fraud case, a recent letter to a federal appeals court indicates. This is a man who was a fugitive after fleeing a federal contempt order, a pro se party several times in litigation after failing to pay his lawyers’ retainer fees, and a big spender on cars and townhouses but not so much on a $2 million civil judgment from 2011 that he still owes to his courtroom opponent. The Lawbook has the latest on this truly remarkable legal saga.
Judges, GCs Speak of the Golden Rule at DBA Day of Civility
Though that legal degree on your wall is kind of important in order to practice law, it turns out that everything you need to know about civility in the profession boils down to the ‘Golden Rule’ that you already learned in kindergarten: treat others the way you would want to be treated.
Houston NRF Lawyer Scores Appellate Win for Phillips 66 in Toxic Tort Case
A group of Houston lawyers at Norton Rose Fulbright have been on a winning streak of toxic tort cases for Phillips 66. The latest happened in a federal appeals court in Denver. Details here.
SCOTX Bumps ‘$48K-an-hour’ Lawyer Back to Square One in Hill Jr Legal Fee Battle
The Texas Supreme Court last week remanded a controversial jury award on legal fees back to a Dallas court for retrial. The court decided that expert testimony instrumental in the $7.25 million ruling for Dallas lawyer Gregory Shamoun was insufficient to justify the claim. The case is the latest in what the court itself called a "spiderweb of litigation" involving Albert Hill Jr. Natalie Posgate has the details.
Updated – From $50 in the Bank to Tuesday’s $502M Verdict Against Apple: Meet Caldwell Cassady & Curry
Meet Caldwell Cassady & Curry. They started with a $50 bank account and a dedicated client. Now they wear jeans to work, name their conference rooms after hip-hop artists and score verdicts in the hundreds of millions. Natalie Posgate explains who they are, where they come from and why Apple wishes they’d go away.