The chairman of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison — a global corporate law firm that has been working to open an office in Houston — said in a memo to its lawyers Sunday that he tried to get other large law firms to join together to fight against the Trump administration’s attacks on his firm and other law firms, but none did. “Disappointingly, far from support, we learned that certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys,” Brad Karp wrote in a 1,620-word letter, which was first obtained and published by The American Lawyer. The firm counts Texas energy giants Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Noble Corp. as major clients. The firm is currently the lead legal advisor for Party City in its bankruptcy case in Houston.
UPDATED: At Justice’s Request, Stephen Hammer Argues First SCOTUS Case
A fourth-year associate in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher made his first oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday when he defended a ruling by a lower court that neither the U.S. Justice Department nor the defendant in the case believe was correct.
EEOC Targets 13 Law Firms Operating in Texas for DEI Initiatives
The new acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sent a 10-page letter to 20 different corporate law firms — 13 of them with operations in Texas, though no Texas-based law firms — demanding detailed information about their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and decision making. The letters, which are addressed to the leaders of each of the law firms, demand that they “fully identify all clients that have diversity preferences or any demographic-related requirements for matters, including but not limited to race or sex requirements for the employees staffed on their matters.”
Media Matters Taps Susman Godfrey, Gibson Dunn to Sue X Corp. and Elon Musk
Texan Elon Musk, who has seen his net worth plummet hundreds of billions of dollars this month due to a steep decline in Telsa stock, quietly added a new foe last week — Susman Godfrey and Houston partner Justin Nelson — which could be a courtroom-size headache for the world’s wealthiest person. Nelson, who led the Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million victory over Fox News in 2023, filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Media Matters against X Corp/Twitter, accusing the social media platform and its owner of abusing the civil justice system to get vengeance against media entities that he blames for his economic losses.
Remembering Lynn Bozalis — ‘Such a Vivid Light Now Gone’
Texas General Counsel Forum CEO Lynn Switzer Bozalis lost her battle with cancer. She was 60. North Texas Tollway Authority GC Dena Stroh said Bozalis “brought energy, good humor and drive to succeed. FullSpeed Automotive General Counsel Kelvin Sellers said she “had such an incredible spirit” and is “a big reason for the success of the Forum.” And Halliburton CLO Van Beckwith said Bozalis was “the consummate leaders’ leader. She brought an extraordinary excellence to every situation. Lynn simply made life better.”
New Leadership for Weil Gotshal in Dallas
The elite Wall Street law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges announced leadership changes in its Dallas offices on Wednesday.
GWG Trustee Sues Holland & Knight for $148M Over Alleged Beneficient Fraud
The bankruptcy trustee appointed to recover funds for creditors in the GWG Holdings bankruptcy case has sued Holland & Knight for nearly $150 million for “knowing participation in a fraudulent looting scheme and associated criminal enterprise” that included Dallas-based financial services firm Beneficient and its founder and CEO Bradley Heppner. In a 156-page complaint filed Friday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston, the court-appointed trustee accuses longtime outside counsel Holland & Knight and one of its Dallas law partners of colluding with Heppner to “fraudulently induce” GWG to invest the $148.4 million to help BEN “stave off collapse” by repaying a senior lender.
‘What Did You Do Last Week?’ Texas Judges Hit With ‘DOGE Emails’
Just days after Elon Musk said “it is time” to consider impeaching federal judges who block President Donald Trump’s government reform initiatives, at least six federal judges in Texas and many more of their clerks and staff received so-called “DOGE emails” the past two days demanding that they justify their jobs by providing explanations of the work that they did last week. The federal judges, who spoke to The Texas Lawbook on the condition that they not be identified, said the emails created “incredible unease and stress” and caused many of the clerks and staff to ask whether their positions were in danger of being eliminated. The email from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management told the recipients to reply with five bullet points listing their work accomplishments and to copy their supervisor. In a statement posted on the social media platform that he owns, Musk wrote, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
SCOTUS Appoints Kasdin Mitchell to Argue Case
Once a year or so, the U.S. Supreme Court appoints a lawyer to advocate a legal position that none of the active parties in the case favor but that needs to be addressed. The justices did just that Thursday.
Antonio Milton: Black History Month is about ‘Generations Past that Struggled to Ensure the Basic Freedoms and Privileges’
Antonio X. Milton got the bug to be a lawyer when he visited his father’s southern Louisiana law office after school. “I was in first grade, and I’d go to his office to do homework,” Milton told Tulane University, his alma mater, in a 2022 interview. “I would see him working with clients, representing real people and arguing before the courts. Just seeing him in action had such an impact on me.”
Milton was the first African American editor-in-chief of the Tulane Law Review, clerked for former Chief Judge Carl Stewart of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and is now a lawyer at the Houston litigation firm Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing. For Black History Month, The Texas Lawbook asked Milton five questions about race, diversity and inclusion and whether he worries about Black history being “cancelled.”