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Mark Curriden

Mark Curriden is a lawyer/journalist and founder of The Texas Lawbook. In addition, he is a contributing legal correspondent for The Dallas Morning News.

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Mark Curriden

Mark Curriden is a lawyer/journalist and founder of The Texas Lawbook. In addition, he is a contributing legal correspondent for The Dallas Morning News.

Mark is the author of the best selling book Contempt of Court: A Turn-of-the-Century Lynching That Launched a Hundred Years of Federalism. The book received the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award and numerous other honors. He also is a frequent lecturer at bar associations, law firm retreats, judicial conferences and other events. His CLE presentations have been approved for ethics credit in nearly every state.

From 1988 to 1994, Mark was the legal affairs writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he covered the Georgia Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He authored a three-part series of articles that exposed rampant use of drug dealers and criminals turned paid informants by local and federal law enforcement authorities, which led to Congressional oversight hearings. A related series of articles by Mark contributed to a wrongly convicted death row inmate being freed.

The Dallas Morning News made Mark its national legal affairs writer in 1996. For more than six years, Mark wrote extensively about the tobacco litigation, alleged price-fixing in the pharmaceutical industry, the Exxon Valdez litigation, and more than 25 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. Mark also authored a highly-acclaimed 16-part series on the future of the American jury system. As part of his extensive coverage of the tobacco litigation, Mark unearthed confidential documents and evidence showing that the then Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, had made a secret deal with a long-time lawyer and friend in which the friend would have profited hundreds of millions of dollars from the tobacco settlement. As a direct result of Mark’s articles, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation, which led to the indictment and conviction of Mr. Morales.

For the past 25 years, Mark has been a senior contributing writer for the ABA Journal, which is the nation’s largest legal publication. His articles have been on the cover of the magazine more than a dozen times. He has received scores of honors for his legal writing, including the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award, the American Judicature Society’s Toni House Award, the American Trial Lawyer’s Amicus Award, and the Chicago Press Club’s Headliner Award. Twice, in 2001 and 2005, the American Board of Trial Advocates named Mark its “Journalist of the Year.”

From 2002 to 2010, Mark was the senior communications counsel at Vinson & Elkins, a 750-lawyer global law firm.

Mark’s book, Contempt of Court, tells the story of Ed Johnson, a young black man from Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1906. Johnson was falsely accused of rape, railroaded through the criminal justice system, found guilty and sentenced to death – all in three weeks. Two African-American lawyers stepped forward to represent Johnson on appeal. In doing so, they filed one of the first federal habeas petitions ever attempted in a state criminal case. The lawyers convinced the Supreme Court of the United States to stay Johnson’s execution. But before they could have him released, a lynch mob, aided by the sheriff and his deputies, lynched Johnson. Angered, the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the sheriff and leaders of the mob, charging them with contempt of the Supreme Court. It is the only time in U.S. history that the Supreme Court conducted a criminal trial.

You can reach Mark at mark.curriden@texaslawbook.net or 214.232.6783.

Dallas Associate Scores Split Decision in First SCOTUS Case

In a five-to-four decision, the U.S. Supreme Court handed Gibson Dunn senior associate Stephen Hammer a partial victory Thursday in a major immigration law dispute that divided the federal circuit courts of appeal and could impact thousands of asylum cases pending in the lower courts.

June 26, 2025 Mark Curriden

DOBS Scores $8M Verdict in J&J Talc Trial

Lawyers with Dallas-based Dean Omar Branham Shirley battled a Houston partner from King & Spalding in a Boston courtroom over the past month in the latest trial over whether Johnson & Johnson’s talcum powder caused the plaintiff’s life-threatening mesothelioma. The Massachusetts jury apparently decided that both Texas lawyers doing battle in their courtroom made strong arguments.

June 19, 2025 Mark Curriden

Citi Law Firm Expert: ‘Fairly Optimistic Outlook for Rest of 2025’

Texas-based corporate law firms started 2025 strong, but they face multiple headwinds over the next several months. The largest law firms headquartered in Texas achieved 35 percent revenue increases during the first quarter of 2025 — triple the amount of their national competitors — even though legal demand grew less than one percent during the period, according to the nation’s leading legal industry financial analyst.

June 17, 2025 Mark Curriden

Susman Godfrey Leads Lawsuit by ABA Against Trump Administration

The nation’s largest and one of its oldest legal organizations has filed a federal lawsuit seeking a restraining order to prevent President Donald Trump and his cabinet members from implementing a policy of “intimidation and coercion” against law firms that has created a “chill of blizzard proportions [that] continues to grip most of the top law firms and lawyers in the country,” the complaint states. The American Bar Association accuses President Trump of using “the vast powers of the Executive Branch to coerce lawyers and law firms to abandon clients, causes, and policy positions the President does not like.” Susman Godfrey, including Houston partners Justin Nelson, Neal Manne and Harry Susman and Dallas partner Barry Barnett, are leading the litigation for the ABA.

June 16, 2025 Mark Curriden

Toyota Motor North America Names New GC, Compliance Officer

DFW-based Toyota Motor North America has named a new general counsel and a new corporate compliance and ethics officer — both will report to chief legal officer Sandra Phillips Rogers. The automaker has named former deputy general counsel Elizabeth Gibson to the GC position and assistant GC Dawn Pittman Collins to the corporate compliance and ethics officer post. Gibson has been a lawyer in the legal department at Toyota for more than 19 years. In her previous position, she oversaw complex litigation, government investigations and regulatory compliance.

June 16, 2025 Mark Curriden

Texas Lawbook Expands Civil Litigation Coverage, Adds Reporter from The Indiana Lawyer

A former reporter with The Indiana Lawyer in Indianapolis, Alexa Shrake joins The Lawbook team as the publication expands its efforts to cover complex commercial litigation and the trial lawyer community in Texas. “Alexa was hired after a nationwide search that yielded more than 200 applicants,” said Texas Lawbook senior litigation reporter and editor Michelle Casady, who leads a team of five journalists who cover litigation full- or part-time. “She was clearly the best reporter for the job.”

June 12, 2025 Mark Curriden

Sunnova Energy Selects Kirkland, Bracewell to Lead $10B Bankruptcy

Only a week after a subsidiary of Sunnova Energy International filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in the Southern District of Texas, the residential solar corporate parent itself filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, citing more than 100,000 potential creditors and liabilities or debts exceeding $10.6 billion.

June 9, 2025 Mark Curriden

Winter Storm Uri Victims Ask SCOTX to Reinstate Their Claims

Lawyers for about 20,000 Texans and Texas businesses have asked the Texas Supreme Court to revive their Winter Storm Uri-related lawsuits and allow their negligence claims against power generators such as Luminant, NRG Power and Calpine to go to trial. In court documents filed Thursday, Dallas appellate law expert Ann Saucer told the justices that a 2023 decision by the First Court of Appeals in Houston that the power generators are immune from the Winter Storm Uri lawsuits “relied on invented facts” and “stifles the common law and threatens legal ossification and economic stagnation” and needs to be reversed. (Feb. 2021 AP file photo)

June 5, 2025 Mark Curriden

Sunnova Selects Bracewell, Alvarez & Marsal for Bankruptcy Advisors

Residential solar company Sunnova TEP Developer, a subsidiary of Houston-based Sunnova Energy International, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week in the Southern District of Texas.

June 4, 2025 Mark Curriden

Lawbook 50: Four Texas Firms Growing East, West and Across the Seas

Baker Botts, Haynes Boone, Bracewell and Vinson & Elkins employed employed 2,360 lawyers and generated nearly $2.9 billion in firmwide revenues in 2024. All four Texas-headquartered corporate law firms reported record revenues and record profits in 2024, according to the Texas Lawbook 50. The data also shows another interesting trend: All four are growing more than twice as fast in their offices outside of Texas than they are in their home state operations.

June 4, 2025 Mark Curriden

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Features

  • P.S. — New State Bar President Launches Campaign to Fund Legal Aid for Low-Income Texans  - When speaking to fellow lawyers, Santos Vargas often asks them a question to illustrate a point. “How many of you could hire yourselves for a protracted legal dispute?” The point is that many people don’t have the financial means to hire a lawyer when faced with a legal problem, which is why the newly minted State Bar of Texas president is on a campaign to raise money for low-income Texans to access legal services. Vargas aims to raise $300,000, with July donations supporting victims of the recent Texas Hill Country flood.  July 11, 2025Krista Torralva

GCs, Lawyers & Firms

  • Beck Redden Bolsters Appellate Group With Hire From Troutman Pepper Locke - Beck Redden announced this week the hiring of Chris Dove, who focuses on commercial litigation in the energy, financial services and maritime sectors. He had spent more than two decades practicing at Troutman Pepper Locke and Locke Lord.
  • McGuireWoods Names Tyler VanHoutan as New Houston Office Managing Partner
  • Reed Smith Beefs Up Global Regulatory Enforcement Group, Hires V&E Partner 
  • Rey Anaya Valencia Begins Deanship at South Texas College of Law Houston
  • Willkie Adds Blake Winburne to its Houston Office
  • Hines CLO Joins Greenberg Traurig in Houston
  • Thomas Verity Vaults to Norton Rose Fulbright
  • Veteran Houston Partner Jumps from Latham to Simpson
  • Skadden Hires Two M&A Partners from White & Case
  • V&E Adds Three Partners: Two from Kirkland, One from Baker Botts
More GCs, Lawyers & Firms

Lawyers in the News

Hover right to see full list

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

Hover right to show full list

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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