Lawyers, Guns and Money: An occasional series on movies, TV and other stories about lawyers and the law — And Justice for All (1979, Dir. Norman Jewison)

The overstuffed but strangely compelling 1979 legal drama starring Al Pacino begins with the voice of a child reading the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s a sardonic start to a barbed, furious, free-swinging indictment of a legal system that, the movie suggests, has gone off the rails. Up is down, black is white, left is right. 

A lone Baltimore defense attorney, Pacino’s Arthur Kirkland, is among the only people upset by what he sees. And make no mistake, he’s plenty upset.

August 30, 2024 Chris Vognar

Ex-Judge Jones Ordered to Ethics Training After Show Cause Hearing

Nine days after Southern District of Texas Chief Bankruptcy Judge Eduardo Rodriguez conducted a show cause hearing in a sealed courtroom, he has determined that his former colleague, David Jones, acted in bad faith when he consented to an interview with lawyers from Jackson Walker and Rusty Hardin’s firm. The ruling comes in a case where Judge Rodriguez must determine whether Jackson Walker should be forced to return about $13 million in legal fees earned in bankruptcy cases before former Judge David Jones.

August 16, 2024 Michelle Casady

Dallas Law Firm Obtains $63.4M Verdict Against Johnson & Johnson in Latest Baby Powder Trial 

Dean Omar Branham Shirley has obtained three jury verdicts this year against Johnson & Johnson over allegations its baby powder contained cancer-causing asbestos. Another trial ended early when the parties settled. Johnson & Johnson has decried the verdicts and maintained its cosmetic talc products did not cause cancer.

August 15, 2024 Krista Torralva

SEC’s FWRO Leads $650M Crypto-Related Pyramid Scheme Litigation

Led by lawyers in its Fort Worth office, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought charges Monday against the owners, employees and promoters of a $650 million crypto asset company that the federal agency claims was actually a multi-level marketing scheme that defrauded more than 200,000 investors, including many in Texas.

August 12, 2024 Mark Curriden

Remembering Houston Lawyer Mike DeGeurin

For five decades, Mike DeGeurin represented criminal defendants rejected by society. He used the law and courts to free innocent people wrongly convicted and sentenced to death.

A 1971 graduate of Texas Tech University School of Law, DeGeurin died Friday from complications from heart issues. He was 79.

August 12, 2024 Mark Curriden

FERC Authorization for Two South Texas LNG Projects Halted by Court

Authorizations for the Texas LNG Brownsville and Rio Grande LNG facilities were vacated by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and returned for a second time to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for further environmental scrutiny. The court said FERC was "arbitrary and capricious" in efforts to side-step environmental justice requirements in the approval process.

August 6, 2024 Allen Pusey

OCI Sells Texas Ammonia Project to Woodside for $2.35B

Latham advised Woodside while Vinson & Elkins counseled OCI, having advised it on the Beaumont project since inception. It's being billed as the world’s first large-scale, low-carbon intensity hydrogen-based greenfield ammonia facility.

August 5, 2024 Claire Poole

Recidivist Acquiror IDEX Buys Mott for $1B

Sidley, led out of Dallas, advised the publicly traded IDEX. Cooley assisted the employee-owned Mott, which fits the buyer's "sweet spot" of highly engineered, configurable mission-critical components.

July 23, 2024 Claire Poole