Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Veteran appellate lawyer Anne Johnson joined Norton Rose Fulbright earlier this month from Tillotson Johnson & Patton, where she built a reputation as one of the top appellate lawyers in Texas.
The Texas Lawbook spoke with Johnson recently about her move to Norton Rose, trends she’s seeing in her practice and more.
The U.S. Supreme Court Friday decided that an environmental damages lawsuit in a Louisiana state court against oil and gas giant Chevron USA should rightly be removed to federal jurisdiction because of the company’s history as a vendor for petroleum products during World War II.
Chevron was represented by Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy. Plaquemines Parish was represented by Louisiana Solicitor General J. Benjamin Aguiñaga and Victor Marcello of Talbot, Carmouche & Marcello in Baton Rouge.
The Trump administration is trying to persuade a federal appeals court to restore President Donald Trump’s executive orders against Houston-based Susman Godfrey and three other law firms, arguing that a president’s power to declare the firms national security threats is "unreviewable" by the courts.
More than a dozen legal groups representing corporate general counsel, smaller law firms, former judges and law professors filed amicus briefs Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit supporting Susman Godfrey and three other corporate law firms that are the targets of punishing executive orders by President Donald Trump.
The briefs signed by 21 law professors at Texas law schools, 23 small-firm lawyers in Texas and several prominent Texas firms asked the appellate court judges to uphold four lower court rulings that declared the presidential executive orders unconstitutional.
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.
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.
In this edition of Asked & Answered, Beck Redden partner Russell Post shares how he went from resisting the idea of attending law school to contemplating a career as a law professor. For Post, who recently secured a win at the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming a law professor is no longer a goal of his, but teaching isn’t out of the question.
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."
John Roberts spoke with U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal during a public visit to the Baker Institute for Public Policy about the U.S. Supreme Court, its history and current challenges, and why he chose Rice University for a return visit.
Caroline M. Hill, a 21-year-old student at Vanderbilt University, is seeking access to the books and records for the Lyda Hunt-Margaret Trust. Her lawsuit alleges she is a contingent beneficiary of the trust, which should contain at least $15 million but has instead been “looted” and “dissolved.” Disputes involving members of the Hill family and the trusts that hold the family’s fortune are not new.
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.
The Trump administration filed court documents late Monday stating that it will no longer seek to enforce the executive orders signed by President Donald Trump last spring against Susman Godfrey and a handful of other law firms.
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