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The Texas Lawbook

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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.

Charlene Wandrisco: ‘You get jet fuel in the blood’

Charlene Wandrisco, Managing Director and Senior Counsel American Airlines For their work at American Airlines, colleagues Charlene Wandrisco and Bruce Wark are recipients of the 2022 DFW Corporate Coursel Award for

January 17, 2023 Mark Curriden

Q&A: Charlene Wandrisco of American Airlines

Charlene Wandrisco and Bruce Wark have been named co-recipients of this year’s competition for Senior Counsel of the Year for large firms by the DFW Chapter of Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook.

Lawbook founder Mark Curriden had a chance to discuss with Wandrisco her standards for hiring outside counsel, the legal profession’s diversity problem and her best day ever at American Airlines.

January 17, 2023 Mark Curriden

SAExploration Sues Auditor for Malpractice, Negligence, Seeks $45M

Houston oilfield services corporation SAExploration is suing its long-time former auditor for allegedly failing to detect a $100 million fraud scheme operated by the company’s former top executives for several years. SAE accuses Pannell Kerr Forster of Texas of negligence, malpractice and “dereliction of duty” that resulted in SAE being forced into bankruptcy, subjected to multiple federal investigations, being delisted by Nasdaq and targeted for class action lawsuits.

January 17, 2023 Mark Curriden

American Airlines’ Charlene Wandrisco and Bruce Wark are ‘Masters of Law and Airlines’

American Airlines Deputy GC Bruce Wark has had a three-decade complex, love-hate relationship with sometimes business partner, many times courtroom opponent online ticket distributor Sabre, including two vigorously fought litigation matters last year. American Senior Counsel Charlene Wandrisco, whose office is a 90-second walk down the hall from Wark, spent 2022 helping redesign the airline's loyalty program, implementing a new partnership with Microsoft that streamlined American’s internal operations and improved customer travel experiences for customers and worked to strengthen collaboration with TSA to create a mobile identification pre-check.

The legal work of the two lawyers, a litigator and a dealmaker, achieved major successes that made American into a better global airline. The result is that Wandrisco and Wark are recipients of the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department.

January 17, 2023 Mark Curriden

Premium Content Q&A: Stephen Cole

Premium Subscriber Insider: Keurig Dr Pepper senior counsel and head of litigation Stephen Cole talks about what he looks for when hiring outside counsel, ever-increasing hourly rates and his advice to young lawyers interested in doing work for Keurig Dr Pepper.

January 13, 2023 Mark Curriden

Premium Content Q&A: Anthony Shoemaker

Premium Subscriber Insider: Keurig Dr Pepper Chief Legal Officer Anthony Shoemaker discusses the career he almost had for CBS Sports, the challenges he has faced since taking over the company’s legal department, what he looks when hiring outside counsel, the role of GCs in pushing law firms toward more diversity and his advice to young lawyers interested in doing work for Keurig Dr Pepper.

January 13, 2023 Mark Curriden

Keurig Dr Pepper’s Legal Department – ‘$1 Billion Profit Center’

This is the story of three lawyers at Keurig Dr Pepper — Jim Baldwin, Anthony Shoemaker and Stephen Cole — who took a huge risk in leading a normally conservative, litigation-adverse company in suing a business partner, the business partner’s profanity-spewing founder and Dr Pepper’s biggest and universally feared competitor, Coca-Cola. Along with outside counsel at Gibson Dunn, they took a highly complex dispute and boiled it down to one sentence in a contract. By the end, they had opposing counsel pleading with the judge to push for a settlement weeks before trial. The result: a $925 million victory and a finalist for the 2022 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year.

January 13, 2023 Mark Curriden

PepsiCo Foods’ Adrienne Mosley: ‘Out of our poverty came a great, life-changing blessing’

Adrienne Brown Mosley’s mother did not have money for a present for her 18th birthday. Instead, she convinced a lawyer in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to allow young Adrienne to follow her for the day. “This shadowing day changed the entire trajectory of my life," Mosley said.

Mosley is now the deputy GC of PepsiCo Foods North America, where she has developed initiatives to build a culture of compliance in a more stringent antitrust regulatory environment, helped enact innovative product partnerships to address supply chain challenges and worked to reinvigorate the corporate giant's diversity and inclusion efforts through innovative mentoring programs.

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Mosley the recipient of the 2022 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department.

January 12, 2023 Mark Curriden

Premium Content Q&A: Adrienne Brown Mosley

Adrienne Mosley shares what makes her tick and offers advice for law firm managing partners about diversity.

January 12, 2023 Mark Curriden

ERCOT to Texas Supremes: ‘Quite Literally, Chaos Will Follow’

If the Texas Legislature wanted the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to be immune from civil lawsuits, it would have passed laws stating so, lawyers representing two large energy companies told the Texas Supreme Court during oral arguments Monday. The justices clearly understood the full stakes of the decision before them.

“Are you arguing that ERCOT is too big to fail?” Justice Boyd asked.

“In essence, yes,” former Texas Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, representing ERCOT, answered.

January 9, 2023 Mark Curriden

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Features

  • P.S. — Nearly $1.4M Raised for Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program - In this edition of P.S., we report on the Dallas Bar Association’s impressive $1.4 million fundraising campaign to support the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program. Coming up, you can watch your favorite lawyer-led musical bands while donating to charity at the Feb. 26 Law Rocks Dallas. And a pro bono legal intake clinic hosted by lawyers from Baker Botts and Toyota North America returned to New Friends New Life. February 13, 2026Krista Torralva
  • P.S. — ‘This is Our American Dream,’ DFW Corp. Counsel Award Winners Share Inspiring Acceptance Remarks - Last week, The Texas Lawbook had the honor of co-hosting the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Awards with the Association of Corporate Counsel DFW Chapter. The words shared by the four honorees in the Diversity and Inclusion and Pro Bono and Public Service categories are still resonating with us and are well worth sharing with readers in this column.

    In this edition of P.S., we also report that Dallas-based Attorneys Serving the Community held a record-breaking fundraising event for Shared Housing Center and a Paul Hastings Texas partner has joined the advisory board of the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law.
    February 6, 2026Krista Torralva & Elle Grinnell

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  • TechnipFMC’s Former Head of Litigation Joins Fletcher Held
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  • Paul Weiss To Open Houston Office with Longtime M&A Dealmakers
  • Melsheimer, Stodghill Lead Nine-Partner Litigation Team to King & Spalding
  • Groundhog Day: More Competition for Texas Talent
  • Weil Opens New Austin Office as Firm Now Has Three in Texas
  • Smith, Gambrell & Russell Expands Texas Reach with New Addition
More GCs, Lawyers & Firms

Lawyers in the News

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Chip Babcock
Chris Bankler
Jamie B. Beaber
David J. Beck
Bill Benitez
Jessica Berkowitz
Brent Bernell
Tyler Bexley
Shawn Blackburn
Michael Blankenship
Jeffrey Brill
Anita Brown
Ian Brown
Stuart Campbell
Jack Chadderdon
Paul Clement
Erin Nealy Cox
Scott Craig
Kevin Crews
Shamus Crosby
Hannah M. Crowe
Geoffrey Culbertson
Sean Cunningham
John Daywalt
Rajiv Dharnidharka
James Ducayet
Brian K. Erickson
Scott Everett
Weiru Fang
Elizabeth Freeman
Tad Freese
Melanie Fry
Geoff Gannaway
Paul Genender
John J. Gilluly III
Rodney Gilstrap
Andrew Gorham
John Greer
Joseph Grinstein
Matthew Haddad
Colleen Haile
Breen Haire
Shahmeer Halepota
Dionne Hamilton
Troy Harder
Rusty Hardin
Michael Hawes
Nathan Hecht
Stephen Hessler
Hillary Holmes
Marc Jaffe
Lauren Jenkins
David Jones
Atma Kabad
Susan Kennedy
David Kinder
Justin King
Allan Kirk
Melanie Koltermann
Doug Kubehl
Joe Laurel
Sang Lee
Steven Lockhart
Arthur Lotz
Barbara Lynn
Mike Lynn
Nora McGuffey
Stephanie McPhail
Mark Melton
Jeri Leigh Miller
Kimberly A. Moore
Mark Moore
Shelby Morgan
Alia Moses
Davis Mosmeyer III
Darren Nicholson
Eamon Nolan
Ivy Nowinski
Holland O’Neil
George Padis
Ian Peck
Jonathan Platt
Chase Proctor
Doug Rayburn
Joel Reese
Kevin Richardson
Andrew Rodheim
Seth Rubinson
Mazin Sbaiti
Ana Sanchez
Vincenzo Santini
Jeffrey Scharfstein
Robert Schroeder III
Scott Seidel
Steven Sexton
Ahmed Sidik
Robert Slovak
Emily Smith
Melissa R. Smith
Jonathon Soler
Robert Soza
Lande Spottswood
Craig Stanfield
Justin Stolte
Josh Teahen
Kelly Tidwell
Linda Tieh
Rafael B. de Toledo
Monica Uddin
Rhett Van Syoc
Rahul Vashi
Gabe Vazquez
Patrick Venter
Sarah Walden
Kandace Walter
Kyle Watson
Mikell Alan West
Noël Wise
Meng Xi

Firms in the News

Hover right to show full list

AZA
Baker Botts
The Bandas Law Firm
Beck Redden
Boies Schiller Flexner
Bracewell
Bradley Arant
Burns Charest
Clement & Murphy
Condon & Forsyth
DLA Piper
Dykema
Foley & Lardner
Gibson Dunn
Gillam & Smith
Haynes Boone
Holland & Knight
Jackson Walker
King & Spalding
Kirkland & Ellis
Latham & Watkins
Lynn Pinker
Mayer Brown
MoloLamken
Pamela Welch PLLC
Patton Tidwell Culbertson
Paul Hastings
Porter Hedges
The Probus Law Firm
Reese Marketos
Rusty Hardin & Associates
Sbaiti & Company
Sidley Austin
Simpson Thacher
Skadden
Squire Patton Boggs
Sullivan & Cromwell
Susman Godfrey
Troutman Pepper Locke
Vinson & Elkins
Weil
Willkie
Winston & Strawn

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