Lending pro bono assistance, Baker Botts is teeing up a constitutional challenge to the Texas comptroller’s decision that sales tax must be collected on feminine-hygiene products when the agency concludes Band-Aids and gauze – and even libido boosters for men – should not. This policy, argues the energy partner who is tackling the challenge, Meghan Dawson McElvy, “favors the male sex drive and organs over the management of female menstruation.”

Less than three months after their indictment, 11 Texans, including two doctors, have pleaded guilty in a payoff scheme involving needless lab tests billed to Medicare and other federal programs by three Dallas-area labs.