Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Joe Ahmad and John Zavitsanos started their law firm in 1993 with no clients, no revenues and no savings. Their office was a rickety old building that leaked every time it rained. Now, in the age of litigation boutiques, AZA is law firm of preference for GCs at Plains All American, National Oilwell Varco and Apache who want to take their business disputes to trial.
The Dallas lawyer is handling some of the biggest business lawsuits in Texas, but he never takes depositions, doesn't argue pre-trial motions or pick juries and he never cross-examines witnesses. In fact, Nolland avoids courtrooms all together.Instead, he has pioneered a new practice area and has gained believers including David Beck, John DeGroote and Halliburton GC Robb Voyles.
A Richardson video game maker and its corporate parent are going after a California firm that they claim hasn’t compensated them for technical know-how they provided in making a virtual reality system.
A bone-chilling fear swept through lawyers at Baker Botts Thursday when a Dallas jury ruled that the Texas-based law firm acted negligently more than a decade ago when it represented two competing technology companies vying for similar patent protections, but didn’t disclose the potential conflict to its client. The jury placed damages against Baker Botts at $40.5 million. But 30 seconds later, the fear turned to extraordinary relief when the five-woman and one-man panel also found that Addision-based Axcess International waited three years too long to file its lawsuit against Baker Botts and, as a result, the 700-lawyer firm likely will not have to pay a dime.
Following three weeks of testimony, lawyers for Axcess International and Baker Botts gave closing arguments Wednesday to the six-person jury. Dallas-based Axcess is seeking $51 million in damages.
A former employee of Dallas-based Genesco Sports Enterprises, Inc. claims his old bosses made knowingly false statements about him to Dallas County prosecutors in an effort to fraudulently help the company win a separate civil lawsuit against its former employee.
Justices gave wide deference to trial judges in deciding when awarding fees are appropriate.
A Dallas jury ruled Monday that Honeywell committed fraud against Hunt Consolidated by not telling the Dallas-based oil company about certain defects in Honeywell’s turbofan engines, which powered two of Hunt’s corporate Learjets. In a 10-2 verdict, the jury awarded Hunt nearly $1.4 million in damages, which included the costs for rental engine fees and repair of Hunt’s engines.
As a Dallas jury read its verdict, Mike Lynn pulled his iPhone from his pocket and sent one email: “We won. $319 million.” A few blocks away, U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn was on the bench in the middle of her own trial when the message arrived. “I wanted to be there in court with Mike when he won such a huge victory for his client,” she says. Barbara and Mike Lynn are Dallas’ undisputed legal power couple. She has shattered gender barriers her entire life and is the only lawyer to ever chair both the ABA’s Litigation and Judicial sections. Now a federal judge, Barbara Lynn has presided over some of the most controversial and important trials in North Texas during the past 15 years. Mike Lynn is a pit bull trial lawyer who left the comforts of a large silk stocking law firm 20 years ago to start one of the most successful and respected litigation boutiques in Texas. His biggest court victory – the $319 million win for Energy Transfer Partners – is the largest judgment ever issued by a state court jury in Dallas.
A Dallas private equity fund is taking officials of a Louisiana company to task over allegations that it secretly set up a “shell” company to funnel money out of the business when the fund owned a piece of that company.
A Dallas jury has awarded a Wise County couple $3 million in their case against Plano-based Aruba Petroleum.
Energy Transfer Partners is asking a judge to award it $914.6 million for damages it suffered over an alleged joint venture with Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners that failed in 2011.
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