Lee Yeakel Joins King & Spalding
The announcement of his move to the firm’s Austin office came Monday, the day his retirement from the Western District of Texas became official. He served on the federal bench for more than 20 years.
Legislature Enters Final Month
Debate is expected Monday on HB 19, controversial legislation to create a separate system of courts to hear high-dollar business disputes. The bill has emerged as a partisan issue, laments Mark Lanier, a high-profile trial lawyer and Republican donor who opposes the proposal. In other, less contentious, action, the House has voted to increase juror pay and raise the mandatory retirement age for judges.
Sen. Schumer Asks NDTX Chief Judge to Revise Case Assignment Methods
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer sent the chief judge of the Northern District of Texas a letter Thursday asking that he “reform the method of assigning cases” to judges to put an end to forum shopping by litigants. The senator said litigants — especially the Texas Attorney General — have abused NDTX procedures that automatically assign cases to judges who sit in those geographic divisions, including divisions that have only one or two federal judges, in order to “hand-pick individual district judges seen as particularly sympathetic to their claims.”
Dallas Jury Awards $860M in Wrongful Death Case Involving Crane Collapse
A Dallas County jury on Wednesday awarded more than $860 million to the parents of a woman killed in 2019 when a 200-foot steel crane toppled onto her apartment building from an adjacent construction site. The verdict exceeded the $700 million sought by plaintiff’s lawyers from Arnold & Itkin.
Group of Plaintiff Lawyers, Most from Texas, Throw Support Behind $8.9B J&J Plan
An ad hoc committee of lawyers who represent about 55,000 talc claimants alleging Johnson & Johnson products caused their cancer have told a bankruptcy judge in New Jersey that they support the company’s plan to establish an $8.9 billion trust to pay out the claims. Many well-known plaintiffs firms from Texas have joined the committee, but one has stayed quiet: Mark Lanier.
Litigation Roundup: SCOTUS Won’t Hear Big Oil’s Bid to Move Climate Suits, Steptoe to Defend HMS in Sex Assault Suit
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider a request from a handful of major oil companies seeking to move climate-related lawsuits filed in state court to federal court and a Dallas County jury recently found that Robert L. Winspear and his business colleague defrauded a finance lender.
Texas Juries Award a Combined $582M in Two Patent Trials Friday
A team of lawyers from McKool Smith and Irell & Manella secured a $303 million patent infringement verdict on Friday in U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap’s courtroom after convincing the jury that Samsung willfully infringed Netlist’s patents related to computer memory technology. The same day, in a trial before U.S. District Judge Alan Albright, a jury sided with Textron Innovations, finding that SZ DJI Technology owes $279 million for infringing two patents related to drones.
Blazing a Trail for Women in STEM — and the Law
There is undeniable momentum for women attorneys, which is good news, indeed. Instead of one token female at counsel’s table, there are women in numbers on both sides of the aisle. But there is still a ways to go, particularly in intellectual property law, where my engineering background and gender still make me something of a rarity.