Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The Texas Supreme Court issued an order Friday instructing Dallas County at Law Judge D’Metria Benson to immediately rescind her standing court order requiring lawyers, witnesses, jurors and others in her courtroom to wear masks.
“The Court disapproves of any such policy in any Texas courtroom,” a three-page order signed by all nine justices released Friday states.
Scott Kelly accomplished more in his first year at ConocoPhillips than many in-house counsel accomplish in decades of service. Kelly joined the ConocoPhillips legal department in December 2024 but has already won three major trials, defeating $250 million in claims against ConocoPhillips and recovering $12 million in damages. And he settled a fourth case that involved multiple fatalities.
Citing these huge courtroom victories, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are awarding the 2026 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year Award for a Large Legal Department to Kelly.
When a federal jury in Houston hit KBR with a $71 million verdict in a trade secrets case involving processes used to manufacture polycarbonate, the engineering and construction firm’s senior counsel Kriste Sullivan didn’t flinch.
She knew the plaintiffs had taken a big gamble. And she knew she had an ace in the hole. But it wasn’t just the luck of the draw that resulted in KBR eventually completely pouring out Trinseo’s $360 million trade secrets case.
Citing that win, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have honored Sullivan, KBR and the lawyers at Susman Godfrey and Bracewell the 2026 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Business Litigation of the Year.
The bench trial between the trustee of a Dallas luxury senior living community and its landlord began Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court Judge Ada Brown’s courtroom. The Edgemere went into bankruptcy in 2022 and was bought at auction in 2023. The company claims its landlord attempted to take control of the business.
The evening before Thanksgiving last year, Energy and Minerals Group General Counsel Laura Tyson was working to close a $1.5 billion transaction when she learned that an investor had filed a lawsuit in Delaware to pause the deal. The litigation didn’t just threaten a transaction, it threatened the future of the company. Despite facing enormous challenges and extraordinarily tight deadlines, Tyson identified and hired a new legal team and put together their legal response to force the litigation into confidential arbitration only five days later.
EMG and Tyson won the litigation and closed the major continuation vehicle transaction. She is also the winner of the 2026 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Texas follows up on its state court lawsuit against proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services with a lawsuit against Glass, Lewis & Co. in Collin County, and Gray Reed secures a complete defense win for a homebuilder client in a Tarrant County jury trial.
Round Two of a fight between the state of Texas and proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services is now underway before Round One has ended, after a new lawsuit was filed by the state in Collin County this week.
The unanimous jury verdict was returned after three days of trial just before 8 p.m. Wednesday. Steffan Robert Mick, a 29-year-old married father of two, was killed in January 2025 when an OPG Logistics 18-wheeler turned in front of him on a farm-to-market road near Midland.
In this edition of Asked & Answered, King & Spalding partner Bruce Hurley reflected on his career and recently being named trial lawyer of the year by the Texas chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates. Hearing the stories from family who were trial lawyers pushed him toward becoming a trial lawyer himself.
Lawyers from Dallas-based Simon Greenstone Panatier recently secured a $10.2 million jury verdict for a mesothelioma client in Minneapolis.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap has determined Collision Communications, a patent holder that secured a $445.5 million infringement verdict against Samsung Electronics last year, failed to show it was also entitled to a permanent injunction to prohibit ongoing infringement.
Tom Melsheimer and lawyers for Texas Instruments, Intel and two other tech companies told U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater Tuesday that he should dismiss a potential precedent-setting case in which five Ukrainians injured or killed in Russian missile and drone attacks have sued for allegedly providing the microchips that guide the Russian weapons. Melsheimer told the judge that the plaintiffs’ lawsuits are fatally flawed because they fail to directly link the technology companies’ products to horrific attacks on Ukrainians, fail to show misconduct by the chip makers and failed to have filed their lawsuits in a timely manner.
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