The Texas discount furniture and appliance retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday in the Southern District of Texas citing more than $1 billion in debts.
SDTX Swears in New Bankruptcy Judge
U.S. Chief Bankruptcy Judge Eduardo Rodriguez officially administered the oath Tuesday to former Weil, Gotshal & Manges partner Alfredo Perez to become the newest bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of Texas. In an order signed July 16 by Chief Judge Rodriguez, Judge Perez will immediately join the Southern District’s complex case panel, which handles larger corporate Chapter 11 bankruptcies. Judge Perez, who will have chambers in Galveston, replaces former Houston Bankruptcy Judge David Jones.
Tehum Care Reaches $75M Settlement in Bankruptcy Dispute
Creditors and debtors in a Texas Two-Step bankruptcy case in Houston reached an agreement Wednesday that both sides believe will resolve more than 200 medical malpractice claims brought by inmates against prison healthcare provider Tehum Care Services, a subsidiary of Corizon Health. Tehum, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, agreed to pay $75 million to creditors, including the plaintiffs who accuse Corizon and Tehum of providing inadequate medical care that led to injuries and deaths at about 50 prisons in more than two-dozen states.
Texas Lawbook 50: 11 Firms Rise to Elite Status
Eleven corporate law firms operating in Texas reached elite financial status in 2023.
Texas Lawbook 50 data shows that three Texas-based law firms and eight national law firms reported at least $3 million in profits per partner and $1.4 million or more in revenue per lawyer in their Texas operations last year.
Deposition of Former Houston Bankruptcy Judge Put on Hold
The on-again, off-again deposition of former Houston Bankruptcy Judge David Jones is on hold again. Lawyers for Jackson Walker want to question Judge Jones about his secret relationship with one of its former partners while still handling corporate bankruptcy cases involving the lawyer and the law firm. But SDTX Chief Bankruptcy Judge Eduardo Rodriguez postponed the depo to determine which questions lawyers can force Judge Jones to answer.
Bell Nunnally Awards Midyear Associate Bonuses
Citing an extraordinary first six months of success, Bell Nunnally has awarded its two-dozen associates midyear bonuses ranging from $10,000 to $25,000.
“We are having a fantastic year with revenues up seven to nine percent year-over-year,” Chris Trowbridge, managing partner of the Dallas-based law firm, told The Texas Lawbook. “We did not want to wait until the end of the year to reward our associates for their great work.”
SDTX Bankruptcy Judge Jones Seeks Dismissal of Romance-Related Lawsuit
A lawsuit against former Houston Bankruptcy Judge David Jones claiming that he conspired with lawyers at corporate law firms should be dismissed because “well-established judicial immunity doctrine … provides absolute immunity from suits for damages” for judges, lawyers for Judge Jones argued in court documents filed Thursday.
“This immunity applies even when the judge is accused of acting maliciously and corruptly, and the immunity extends to allegations of intentional misconduct,” David Boies, lawyer for Judge Jones, wrote in the motion to dismiss.
Texas Lawbook Hires Jeff Schnick as Editor
The Texas Lawbook has hired longtime business journalist and editor Jeff Schnick as its new editor. Schnick, 45, is the former editor of the Dallas Business Journal and a former assistant business editor at The Dallas Morning News. He will oversee a news team of nine reporters who cover business litigation and trials, corporate mergers, acquisitions and capital markets, law firm management and business bankruptcies.
“We’re working persistently to make our news product more comprehensive across all our coverage areas, as well as to ensure that our premium subscribers are offered more exclusive data and stories,” Schnick said in a Q&A, where he discusses his background, his passion for newspapers and his plans for enhancing Lawbook content.
Travis Torrence’s Road to U.S. Head of Legal for Shell USA
Travis Torrence is the great-great-grandson of slaves who worked on plantations along the River Road in Louisiana — a swath of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge — just footsteps away from a Shell USA refinery in Convent and just miles away from Shell’s petrochemical plant in Norco. He is the great-grandson of Mississippi sharecroppers. His dad was a truck driver and his mother was a public high school teacher. Three months ago, London-based energy giant Shell named Torrence as its head of legal for its U.S. operations and associate general counsel over global litigation — the first Black person to hold the position.
“My story and my family’s history are not lost on me,” Torrence told The Texas Lawbook in an interview. In this story, Torrence talks family, his days at Shell and the attributes of the outside counsel he seeks to hire.
Motions Fly, Ex-Judge to be Deposed in SDTX Bankruptcy Court Romance Scandal Litigation
The litigation regarding the secret relationship between former Houston Bankruptcy Judge David Jones and former Jackson Walker partner Elizabeth Freeman heated up Tuesday when the U.S. trustee seeking to claw back $13 million in legal fees from the Texas law firm asked Southern District of Texas Chief Bankruptcy Judge Eduardo Rodriguez to reject Jackson Walker’s “no harm, no foul” defense and Jackson Walker won the battle to depose Judge Jones as part of its defense against the trustee’s efforts.
At the same time, in separate but related litigation, lawyers for former Bouchard Transportation Company CEO Morton Bouchard asked U.S. District Chief Judge Alia Moses of the Western District of Texas to reject the defendants’ motions to dismiss the racketeering and fraud lawsuit he filed earlier this year against Judge Jones, Freeman, Jackson Walker, Kirkland & Ellis and Portage Point Partners.