Last week was business for lawyers and judges inside the courtroom and publicly. Texas voters by a nearly two-to-one margin rejected Proposition 13, which would have raised the mandatory retirement age for state judges from 75 to 79. In litigation, two energy companies sued Winston & Strawn for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty; The U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt an environmental trial set to start later this month in Louisiana against BP America, Shell Oil and Hilcorp Energy in which the plaintiffs seek $7 billion in damages; a Dallas jury awarded McKool Smith in $4.7 million in legal fees; and Akin scored a win for Elon Musk’s SpaceX in an immigration dispute.
Texas GC Forum Honors Eight Corporate Counsel for Leadership, Successes
Eight general counsel and senior counsel from Baker Hughes, Beneficient, Cart.com, City of Grand Prairie, McDermott, Transocean, Trillium Flow Technologies and Westlake Chemical, were honored Thursday night in Austin by the Texas General Counsel Forum for their accomplishments and leadership in 2022 and 2023. The 17th annual Magna Stella Awards went to four women and four men on topics ranging from major transaction and major litigation of the year to general counsel for large and small corporate legal departments. The Texas Lawbook was there and has full details.Photo: Andres Sotomayor
California Jury Awards Reese Marketos Client $5.2M in Unlawful Competition Trial
A federal jury heard four days of testimony from nine fact witnesses and two experts in a trademark infringement, fraud, defamation and unlawful business interference case brought by fintech firm ConsumerDirect against a competitor. The jury deliberated for three hours before delivering a multimillion-verdict in the litigation … for the defendant, Array. It is the second time in a decade that lawyers at Reese Marketos won a huge judgment for the same client as a defendant.
Baker Botts, Murtha Cullina Score Defense Jury Win for Exxon Mobil
A Connecticut jury deliberated for more than four hours Wednesday before rejecting claims in a $40 million lawsuit brought by the wife of a former Exxon gas station owner that the Houston-based oil giant was responsible for the acute myelogenous leukemia that caused his death in 2018 at the age of 67. The defense legal team also included Exxon Mobil corporate counsel Ted Ray and Baker Botts partner Ty Buthod.
Gibson Dunn Scores Win for Uber in Patent Dispute
A federal judge in Delaware has voided three patents obtained by a Texas-based business technology management company involving its surge-pricing system for ride-sharing apps because the feature is less of a “technology problem” and more an issue of “human inefficiency that could be solved by automation.”
U.S. Trustee: At Least 26 Bankruptcy Cases Tainted Due to Judge Jones, Ex-Jackson Walker Partner Relationship
The U.S. Trustee filed notice Friday that at least 26 corporate bankruptcy cases in the Southern District of Texas are tainted and that $13 million in legal fees awarded to Jackson Walker should be revisited or declared invalid because of the undisclosed romantic relationship between Houston Bankruptcy Judge David Jones and former Jackson Walker law partner Elizabeth Freeman. The trustee also said the disputes should be transferred to the chief judge in the Western District.
The Texas Lawbook has an in-depth report.
Match Scores Financial Concessions in Settlement with Google
Lawyers for Dallas-based online dating company Match Group were set to do battle with attorneys for internet search giant Google next week in a federal courthouse in San Francisco over allegations of antitrust abuses and breach of contract. But the two corporate powerhouses announced late Tuesday that they have settled their dispute and are best friends once again. The Match legal team included CLO Jared Sine, assistant GC Jeanette Teckman, senior counsel Stephen Myers and Dallas trial lawyer Jeff Tillotson.
‘Reminds Me of the Facebook Relationship Status — It’s Complicated’
Seven trial lawyers have been contacted by parties involved in corporate bankruptcies and restructurings before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones of Houston between 2018 and 2022 to inquire about potential legal claims they have against the judge or the law firm that employed his live-in girlfriend during those five years. No new lawsuits have been lodged and no one is publicly claiming that they were wronged as a result of Judge Jones’ secret romantic relationship with a partner in Jackson Walker’s bankruptcy practice.
But the controversy surfaced last week in an ongoing bankruptcy case. U.S. Trustee Kevin Epstein asked Judge Marvin Isgur, who is overseeing the GWG Holdings restructuring, to postpone awarding more than $1 million in legal fees to Jackson Walker, who served as co-lead debtor’s counsel, while the U.S. trustee’s office investigates. Judge Jones served as the mediator in the case and the lawyer worked on the case.
SEC Charges Austin’s SolarWinds, CISO with Fraud
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud charges Monday against SolarWinds Corporation, an Austin publicly traded company that provides information infrastructure software used by thousands of businesses and government agencies, for alleged failures regarding cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities. The SEC’s complaint filed in New York that accuses SolarWinds and its chief information security officer, Timothy G. Brown, with making “materially false and misleading statements and omissions related to SolarWinds’ cybersecurity risks and practices in at least three types of public disclosures” between 2018 and 2020.
‘Think Like an In-House Lawyer’
Porter Hedges founder Bill Porter must have seen something special when he recruited Vanderbilt University second-year law student Joyce Soliman in 1996. Twenty-seven years later, the Houston-based, 125-attorney, full-service law firm has named Soliman, a corporate finance lawyer and the past chair of the Asian American Bar Association’s board of trustees, as its new co-managing partner.