Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Kate Morris and Russ Pearlman are beginning a new chapter after their firm Hosch & Morris has closed its doors.
“Carrington Coleman] is a firm we both have long admired, and filled with lawyers we trust. We’re honored not only to join the firm, but to be so warmly welcomed into such good company,” Morris said.
For the first-time ever, Texas has a corporate law firm with 500 attorneys working in the state. A second firm is just two lawyers shy of 500. Four law firms now have 400 or more attorneys and 11 have 200 or more business lawyers operating in Texas, according to new data research by The Texas Lawbook.
Even so, the number of business lawyers in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio is not growing fast enough to handle the increased demand for legal services from corporate clients.
For two hours Tuesday morning, 12 jurors and one alternate seated in a Harris County courtroom were told they would be determining who was responsible for a deadly explosion that rocked a West Houston neighborhood in 2020, claiming lives and damaging or destroying more than 450 businesses and homes. (2020 file photo by Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle via AP)
In a tag-team closing argument Monday afternoon, two attorneys representing a client facing a $432.7 million damages request by Energy Transfer told Business Court Judge Grant Dorfman the amount being sought is both unfounded and a drastic overreach.
Houston energy technology company Baker Hughes has agreed to sell its Waygate Technologies business to Hexagon, a Swedish measurement technologies firm, for about $1.45 billion cash.
The advent of AI is being billed as an upgrade on the scale of the Industrial Revolution. The legal industry appears to be digesting AI tools more comfortably every day. We nevertheless urge caution. Any new technology can have unintended side effects. Smartphones, for instance, devour our attention. We all knew watching too much TV was bad for us, but smartphones are like TV screens on steroids. Like the radio transmitter worn by Harrison Bergeron’s father in Vonnegut’s 1961 short story, smartphones displace deep thought.
AI could be worse.
DENVER — What’s expected to be a five-day trial commenced Monday in U.S. District Judge William Martinez’s courtroom in the case between Chris Parker and Charif Souki over an alleged agreement not to sell Tellurian stock. The eight-member jury will decide whether a text message exchange is a binding contract.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a distributor of energy drink Alani is sued by the family of a 17-year-old girl who died after consuming the beverages, and Samsung tells a Texas judge the invalidation of a patent by a California judge means it’s entitled to a new trial in a dispute that had ended with a $78 million verdict against it.
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook announced Monday the recipients of the 2026 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards for Business Litigation of the Year, M&A Transaction of the Year, Creative Partnership, Corporate Legal Department of the Year, Lifetime Achievement and Rookie of the Year.
ACC Houston and The Lawbook disclosed the GCs of the Year, Senior Counsel of the Year, Harry Reasoner Pro Bono Advocacy and Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion honorees last week.
“The Houston Corporate Counsel Awards celebrate the exceptional legal talent driving business success across our city, honoring the in-house counsel who work tirelessly behind the scenes to protect and advance the companies and communities that make Houston thrive,” said ACC Houston President Emily K. Shields. “When accomplished lawyers take time to nominate a peer, it speaks volumes about the standard of excellence this recognition represents.”
For the week ended April 11, the CDT Roundup saw 10 deals reported with a total valuation of just over $5 billion. The prior week had 11 deals reported with a total value of $33 billion, dominated by a $29.1 billion megamerger between food distribution giants Sysco and Jetro Restaurant Depot. A year ago at this time, the Roundup reported on eight deals valued at about $2.4 billion.
This week, however, credit and capital markets dominate the deal numbers. Maybe “dominate” is strong a word to describe three debt issues, a $167 million PIPE and a secondary equity offering that forced a dip in a company stock.
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