Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Nathan Reis entered his guilty plea on the day his trial was to begin before U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth. Reis’s wife, former Phoenix TV news anchor Stephanie Hockridge, was convicted by a jury in Judge O’Connor’s court in June.
Tiffany H. Eggers, a former criminal chief in the U.S. attorney’s office in Dallas, and Sarah R. Douglas, a former prosecutor in the fraud section, are reuniting with Leigha Simonton, the immediate former U.S. attorney, and Scott Hogan, Simonton’s former first assistant, who joined Dykema in April.
Juliet McBride is making her first lateral move after spending her entire career at King & Spalding to this point.
Nachawati Law Group is launching an antitrust practice with three attorneys who have experience working in government. The firm told The Lawbook the decision was spurred in part by the trend of state attorneys general pursuing these types of cases with more regularity.
Vartabedian Hester & Haynes adds to its newly launched white collar and investigations practice group with the hiring of Richard Guiltinan. He brings Department of Justice and private practice experience to the firm.
Texas’s 2025 legislative session marked a major shift in land‐use policy. With Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature on SB 840, the state joined a broader wave of reforms aimed at unlocking housing supply by curbing municipal zoning and regulation. These laws will work in concert to dismantle longstanding barriers to multifamily development by streamlining conversions of commercial properties, raising the bar for rezoning protests and reducing lot‐size mandates. Together, these measures represent one of the most sweeping efforts to expand housing options and revive underused urban assets in Texas cities.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a professional gambler is accused of running a $9 million Ponzi scheme, a few cities challenging the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act are dealt a loss on appeal, and the Kentucky attorney general taps a Dallas law firm to help bring a consumer protection lawsuit against shopping website Temu.
After more than 20 years practicing at Thompson & Knight and later Holland & Knight, Richard Roper has left the law firm to take a new role with Vartabedian Hester & Haynes, where he will start and head a white collar and investigations practice group.
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