Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
ADJ Managing Partner Marcy Hogan Greer said in a statement that Hurd’s “unique understanding of the workings of the appeals process” will “undoubtedly be of great benefit to our clients.”
Zenobia Bivens died last month at the age of 40. The Houston appellate lawyer worked with President Barack Obama, Judge Carl Stewart of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and former Texas Supreme Court Justice Dale Wainwright over her career. In addition to leading Frost Brown Todd's Houston expansion, she was committed to pro bono advocacy work and championed a groundbreaking internship program with Rice University.
The Gibbs & Bruns associate was one of very few – maybe the only – law clerks from Texas who worked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.
“In almost five decades as a lawyer,” former Houston appellate justice Murry Cohen concluded in an amicus brief this week to the Texas Supreme Court, “I’ve read plenty of bad opinions. In almost two decades as an appellate judge, I surely wrote some. None was near this offensive.” Rather than press a position in the case before the Supreme Court, Cohen argued the Fort Worth Court of Appeals justices who decided the case should be admonished for unethical commentary that had nothing to do with the decision.
Sharon Freytag, a founding member of Haynes and Boone's appellate group, died last week at the age of 78. She was a powerful writer, gifted oral advocate, generous mentor and respected leader in the bar. One client said she was "like Jackie O. as a sniper – classy but deadly!"
The circuit court certified a question to the Texas Supreme Court asking how far state law allows certain state officials, particularly licensing officials, to go in enforcing violations of Senate Bill 8.
Year two of the pandemic brought a gradual return to “normal” operations at the Texas Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit. Virtual arguments – in many cases – transitioned to in-person oral arguments. The Fifth Circuit issued important guidance on certifying FLSA collective actions, rejected the so-called fraudulent misjoinder doctrine and clarified standards for federal jurisdiction in the arbitration context. The Texas Supreme Court issued key contract formation cases, refined the standards for determining when courts and agencies have jurisdiction to decide tort claims in the electric-power context and provided guidance on key procedural questions under the TCPA. The Haynes and Boone appellate team has full details.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz returns to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as a party -- not as a practitioner -- to argue federal campaign-finance limits violate his First Amendment rights. At issue: a 20-year-old federal law that prohibits candidates from raising more than $250,000 after an election to repay a personal loan to their campaigns.
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