The Texas Lawbook

Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury

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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 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.

Susman Godfrey: Trump EO ‘Constitutes Grave Abuse of Presidential Power’

President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting Susman Godfrey “violates the First Amendment many times over,” is “odious viewpoint discrimination” and should be declared unconstitutional and illegally unenforceable.

With that opening argument, lawyers for Susman Godfrey filed a new brief Friday asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to uphold a lower court ruling permanently restraining President Trump’s executive order issued last spring targeting the Houston litigation powerhouse from being enforced. Two other corporate law firms that were the targets of President Trump’s EOs — WilmerHale and Jenner & Block — also filed briefs in their respective cases, which have been consolidated before the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

Mark Curriden

SCOTX Ends Winter Storm Uri Litigation Against Power Generators

Without writing a single sentence to explain why, the Texas Supreme Court on Friday officially ended any efforts by tens of thousands of Texas citizens and small businesses to sue power generators for personal injuries, wrongful deaths and property damages suffered during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021.

The decision is a huge victory for large power generators such as Luminant, NRG, Calpine, Exelon and Sempra Energy, who argued that the lawsuits, which sought billions of dollars in damages, should be dismissed because the unprecedented weather, not the companies’ actions, was responsible for the injuries and damages.

Mark Curriden

Texas Lawbook Leadership Symposium Announces Speakers

The Texas legal community has a history of great leaders.

To identify, celebrate and teach leadership skills, challenges and successes, The Texas Lawbook, with the support of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter, has created the Texas Lawbook Leadership Symposium.

The launch event on April 13 will feature two panels of extraordinary leaders.

Mark Curriden

Remembering Judge E. Grady Jolly — ‘A Fifth Circuit Original’

Judge E. Grady Jolly, who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for 43 years, died Monday. He was 88.

Former Fifth Circuit Judge Gregg Costa wrote in a LinkedIn post that Judge Jolly had a "razor-sharp wit, was a world-class raconteur, and brought uncommon wisdom and judgment to deciding cases.

“Judge Jolly cared about the law and his views as much as anyone on the court. But after arguing his position with aplomb, he would walk out of the conference with his arm draped around the colleague with whom he had just disagreed, telling jokes on his way to toasting the colleague with a cocktail. We need more of that good spiritedness these days."

Mark Curriden

‘Law as a Profession Rises and Falls on Leadership’

Jim Coleman, a role model and mentor for scores and scores of Texas attorneys, openly worried that law was quickly becoming just like every other business and was no longer a noble profession.

“The law, as a profession, rises and falls on leadership,” he told The Texas Lawbook in 2015.

Never have those words been more important than today.

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Lawbook are pleased to announce the launch of the Texas Lawbook Leadership Symposium, which will focus on issues facing legal industry leaders, provide insight into leadership decision-making and honor corporate general counsel and law firm executives and managing partners who have demonstrated great leadership during an era of disruption.

Mark Curriden

Walmart Names Erin Nealy Cox as New CLO

Walmart Inc., the largest corporate employer in the U.S., has named former Dallas prosecutor Erin Nealy Cox as its new chief legal officer. Cox, who has been a partner at Kirkland & Ellis in Dallas since 2021, will assume the job as the retail giant’s top lawyer April 13.

Mark Curriden

Citi Report: Texas Law Firms Hit Double-Digit Revenue, Profit Increases in 2025

Despite weak demand, a decline in productivity and lower hourly rate increases than the national average, corporate law firms based in Texas experienced major increases in revenue and profits per partner in 2025, according to a new report by Citibank’s Global Wealth Law Firm Group. Citi’s Michael McKenney said 2025 started slow for the business law community with fears about a federal government shutdown and other macro concerns but ended the year in record fashion.

Mark Curriden

DOJ: EOs Do Not Violate Susman Godfrey’s First Amendment Rights, Trump Has Legal Power to Punish Law Firms

President Trump has the constitutional authority to issue executive orders against Houston-based Susman Godfrey and three other corporate law firms because those firms "have taken actions that threaten public safety and national security, limit constitutional freedoms, degrade the quality of American elections, and undermine bedrock American principles,” the U.S. Justice Department argued in court briefs filed Friday. “This is simply the President’s speech. Plaintiffs have no First Amendment right, and the Judiciary has no authority, to silence him,” DOJ wrote. But legal experts say what is missing from the DOJ brief is more important and critical to the litigation.

Mark Curriden

DOJ Flip-Flops Again, Seeks to ‘Withdraw Motion to Withdraw’ in President’s EO Litigation

Less than 15 hours after telling a federal appeals court that it no longer planned to fight to enforce the executive orders signed by President Donald Trump last spring against Susman Godfrey and three other corporate law firms, the U.S. Justice Department filed new motions today seeking to “withdraw their motion to voluntarily dismiss these consolidated appeals.”

The same two senior DOJ lawyers who last evening told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that the federal government would no longer fight to reverse orders from lower court judges declaring that the EOs targeting four law firms were illegal and blocked them from being enforced signed a six-page filing today saying that the fight is back on.

Justice Department lawyers gave no explanation for the government’s sudden reversal.

Mark Curriden

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