Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
In this edition of Asked & Answered, Johnston Tobey Baruch managing shareholder Chad Baruch shares his experience representing hip-hop artists in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court and highlights a surge in Texas mandamus practice. He also shares his top brief-writing tips and pet peeves.
Jeff Cody, Norton Rose Fulbright’s global and U.S. managing partner, said IP is one of the firm’s three core pillars.
Derek Lipscombe was managing counsel at Toyota North America for nearly 11 years, and before that he spent four years as senior managing counsel at J.C. Penney. Alex Pratt practiced law at Perkins Coie for nine years. This week, both lawyers joined the Dallas office of Haynes Boone as partners in its expanding labor and employment practice.
Legal industry analysts say the lateral hires give the Dallas-based corporate firm a distinct advantage in the labor side of the employment law practice — an expertise that they describe as often overlooked yet in demand.
SmartDisk, a deposition video and production company that started in Houston more than 20 years ago, was vindicated by a panel of Texas Business Court jurors Tuesday afternoon when they agreed a former business partner owes the company about $6.4 million in damages for breach of an agreement.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, we offer details on two high-dollar disputes involving the leasing of railcars, the former chief financial officer of a Dallas nonprofit goes to prison for embezzling $2 million, and the parties that lost a patent case seeking more than $400 million in damages ask for a redo.
The Texas Business Court stayed hot throughout August, issuing six opinions as the Court’s docket continued to mature with procedural and doctrinal opinions. Evident in several opinions is the familiar theme that has characterized the Court’s growing resolution of complex commercial disputes: Documents mean what they say, and parties are held to the bargains they struck.
Intellectual property lawyers Joshua Budwin, Richard Kamprath, Kevin Burgess, and John Campbell are bringing a new boutique powered by Big Law veterans to the market. “I tell my kids if you want to be truly successful you’ve got to work for yourself," Budwin said.
Congress passed the Local Access to Courts Act this week, creating a new federal courthouse in College Station as part of the Houston Division in the Southern District of Texas. U.S. District Chief Judge Randy Crane will select temporary quarters and then look at a location likely around Texas A&M to construct a new courthouse, which can take two years.
After two years in operation, the Texas Business Court has proven to be a nimble, sophisticated venue for resolving complex business litigation. But there’s one issue that represents an “existential” threat to the continued success and growth of the court, Administrative Presiding Judge Grant Dorfman recently told The Texas Lawbook: a shortage of permanent courtrooms.
Two years into its existence, the Texas Business Court has proven it can resolve complex business disputes quickly. But so far, the Texas Legislature has only funded five of the 11 divisions it created, leaving West, East and South Texas without access to the business court. With the 2027 legislative session on the horizon, talks with lawmakers are underway to expand the court’s divisions.
A year or so ago, former U.S. District Judge Alan Albright realized he was ready to make the next — likely the final — move in his long career in the world of patent and intellectual property litigation.
“I started really missing being a trial lawyer and the practice,” Albright told The Texas Lawbook in an interview Tuesday. “I'd watch during trials and lawyers would do something, and I would be old and grumpy and I would text my clerks: ‘They should have done this,’ or ‘That’s stupid.’”
In a series this week, The Texas Lawbook dives into the Texas Business Court’s first two years of operation and what changes may come during the next legislative session.
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