Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a two-page letter to 20 large corporate law firms — 13 with operations in Texas — seeking information about their diversity and inclusion initiatives related to their hiring and promotion efforts that Paxton alleges may have violated state and federal laws regarding discrimination.
In this week’s P.S. column, the San Antonio Legal Services Association and another nonprofit are seeking volunteer lawyers to participate in a housing rights workshop on Saturday to educate tenants on housing rights and show them how to draft repair requests. Also, the Center for Women in Law will honor Reed Smith global managing partner Casey Ryan with the Hortense Ward Courageous Leader Award at its April 4 luncheon, featuring BBC journalist Katty Kay as keynote speaker. Finally, The Texas Lawbook invites submissions on pro bono collaborations between corporate legal departments and law firms for a new monthly column.
Let the competition begin. In this week’s P.S. column, the North Texas Food Bank is set to soon start its annual “Food from the Bar” campaign, a friendly competition among the Dallas-area legal community to raise food for children while they’re out of school this coming summer. Also, St. Mary’s University School of Law got a generous gift to create a center for business and transaction law. And one law firm is making sure Houston Rodeo participants get home safe with free Lyft rides.
Preparation and curiosity will carry you further than perfection. As you grow, you outgrow certain mentors and find new ones who challenge and shape you in different ways. It’s a lifelong process — and that’s one of the greatest lessons I can share with the next generation of women attorneys: mentorship, learning, and growth are never one-and-done. They’re constant companions on your career journey.
The new acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sent a 10-page letter to 20 different corporate law firms — 13 of them with operations in Texas, though no Texas-based law firms — demanding detailed information about their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and decision making. The letters, which are addressed to the leaders of each of the law firms, demand that they “fully identify all clients that have diversity preferences or any demographic-related requirements for matters, including but not limited to race or sex requirements for the employees staffed on their matters.”
U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant entered a permanent injunction in a First and Fourteenth Amendment lawsuit against Grayson County and its sheriff that requires the jail to allow books, magazines and other correspondence sent to incarcerated people from the nonprofit prison advocacy Human Rights Defense Center. The Florida-based group is represented on a pro bono basis by O’Melveny & Meyers and the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic.
For several weeks that a woman found refuge at Dallas’ New Friends New Life for formerly trafficked and sexually exploited victims, the staff hadn’t seen a small measure of her joy: laughter.
Finally, at a pro bono legal intake clinic with attorneys from Toyota North America and Baker Botts, staffers caught a glimmer of hope as they heard the woman laugh after receiving legal aid. It was a moment that resonated with the staff and the volunteer lawyers, said Scott Young, managing counsel of Toyota North America in Plano.
“That is more than just turning a page,” Young said. “That’s like freeing her from her limitations.”
All right, all right, all right. In this week’s P.S. column, St. Mary’s School of Law and the San Antonio Bar Association announce their annual People’s Law School event. Dallas lawyers fundraised to the tune of $82,000 for local charities through a battle of the bands style concert. The Austin office of Latham & Watkins sponsored a youth tennis clinic for Boys & Girls Club and sponsored the WTA tournament that drew a local celebrity. And The Texas Lawbook needs your help identifying scholarships for low-income students who need assistance.
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