© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden
(Aug. 3) – The criminal securities fraud case against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is only getting started, but it already features some of the best lawyers in the state.
At the same time, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has conducted its own inquiry into Servergy, though it is unclear if Paxton’s involvement is part of the federal investigation.
The case has attracted A-list white-collar lawyers from Dallas and Houston.
A state district judge in Collin County appointed two high-profile Houston criminal defense lawyers – Kent Schaffer and Brian Wice – to act as special prosecutors.
Paxton hired Joe Kendall, a former state court and federal court judge, to lead his defense.
“These allegations will continue to be debated, analyzed and argued about in many forums,” Kendall said. “I believe the focus should be on moving this matter through our judicial system, and that is the forum on which I will concentrate.”
The SEC’s investigation is led by two enforcement lawyers – Samantha Cox Martin and Matthew Gulde – from the Fort Worth Regional Office. Martin is an SMU Dedman Law School graduate and former associate at Jones Day. She’s been at the SEC for more than two years.
A 2000 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, Gulde is a former federal prosecutor and a lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis.
Lawyers familiar with the SEC investigation say that the federal regulatory agency is focused on Servergy, not Paxton.
However, those lawyers say that the SEC has cooperated fully with the special prosecutor’s investigation. Lawyers confirm that the SEC provided the Texas Rangers, which led the state’s criminal probe into Paxton, with substantial documentation that was presented to the grand jury that indicted the attorney general.
Addleman, a partner in the firm’s Dallas office, spent two decades with the SEC, including several years heading the SEC’s enforcement activities in Atlanta and Fort Worth. Addleman is widely respected within the white-collar legal community.
Newman is a six-year associate at Haynes and Boone and specializes in representing businesses facing federal securities investigations.
But the big stars of the criminal case will be Joe Kendall versus Kent Schaffer and Brian Wice.
Kendall worked his way through college at SMU as a police officer. He went to law school at Baylor. He graduated in 1980 and immediately joined the Dallas County District Attorneys Office, where he handled felony prosecutions for two years.
Kendall was a state district judge in Dallas from 1987 to 1992, when President George H.W. Bush appointed him to be a judge on the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas.
In 2002, Kendall resigned to join the Provost Umphrey law firm. Kendall started his own law firm in 2008, which has nine lawyers.
Collin County District Judge Steve Becker, a Republican and former Collin Co. assistant district attorney, appointed Kent Schaffer and Brian Wice to act as special prosecutors.
Schaffer, a partner in Bires Schaffer & DeBorde of Houston, started his legal career as an investigator for legendary criminal defense attorney Richard “Racehorse” Haynes.
A 1981 graduate of the University of Houston Law Center, Schaffer has spent the past 34 years developing one of the most successful criminal defense practices in the nation. He represented former Houston Mayor Fred Hofheinz and former U.S. Rep. Craig Washington in political corruption cases.
Schaffer also defended actress Farrah Fawcett, author Clifford Irving, Major League baseball star Ken Caminiti, financier Allen Stanford, and oilman Oscar Wyatt in various legal matters.
Wice, also a graduate of the University of Houston Law Center, is a high-profile Houston appellate lawyer who represented former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and NFL star Adrian Peterson.
All of the lawyers involved in the case declined to comment.
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