This week’s edition of P.S. features a disaster relief fund offering financial aid to ranchers affected by the Panhandle wildfires, Congressional funding news for civil legal aid in Texas, an upcoming legal knowledge education event for the public at a Central Texas law school and the Texas Bar Foundation’s recipient choice for its annual public service and legal ethics-oriented award.
More Stories
Lawyers, Guns and Money: Roman J. Israel, Esq — An Occasional Series on Movies, TV and Other Stories About Lawyers and the Law
The title character of Roman J. Israel, Esq. is a sort of walking anachronism, a man out of time in more ways than one. A civil rights lawyer who never entered the modern era, he rarely leaves his cluttered Los Angeles office, preferring to let his much smoother partner operate as the firm’s public face. His boxy suits and unkempt hair suggest a man who doesn’t care a lot about what others think. Then his partner dies suddenly, leaving his cases to a well-coiffed (and white) pragmatist. Roman decides he might just want a piece of the pie. And he’s willing to make some very bad decisions to get it.
Dykema Hires MehaffyWeber Products Liability Pro in Houston
Brad Howell comes to Dykema after nearly six years at MehaffyWeber. He’s handled cases involving products liability, statutory indemnity, toxic torts, catastrophic injuries, wrongful death, fire investigations and commercial litigation. He counts among his clients one of the world’s largest heavy equipment manufacturers and has represented clients in courts across 11 states.
Come ‘World War or Power Outages,’ SEC’s FWRO Charges 17 in Alleged CryptoFX Fraud Scheme
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed federal fraud charges Thursday against 17 sales workers with a Houston-based cryptocurrency trading company for allegedly operating a $300 million Ponzi scheme targeting more than 40,000 investors — most of them Latinos.
Dallas COA Opinion Highlights How TCPA Framework Can be ‘Undermined’
This week a three-justice panel of the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas ordered Dallas County District Judge Staci Williams to hold a hearing on a motion to dismiss pending before her that was brought under the Texas Citizens Participation Act. The state’s anti-SLAPP law requires that a hearing on a motion to dismiss take place within 60 days, but Judge Williams’ staff told the relators in this case — who tried six times to get a hearing set — that, while it does its best to accommodate requests for hearings, its docket is “jammed packed” and “there is no way to SQUEEZE your motion into the requested docket.”
Sorrels Law Taps Doctor-Lawyer Hieu Dang to Open Dallas Office
Dr. Hieu T. Dang has an impressive résumé, packed with medical and legal experience as well as a diversity of languages. Dang will continue his anesthesiology practice while working for Sorrels and his own private practice. In a Q&A, Dang shares his keys for success and his winding career path.
Fifth Circuit Panel Decries ‘Rambo’ Tactics in Reversal, Scathing Opinion
A three-judge panel including the chief judge issued a rare reversal of a trial verdict on the grounds of improper jury argument. Two Texas lawyers who resorted to name calling, including one who threw a tissue box at opposing counsel, “employed nearly every category of what we have previously held to be improper closing argument,” the judges wrote.
CDT Roundup: 23 Deals, 21 Firms, 218 Lawyers, $4.7B
When watching the M&A markets it’s easy to become fixated on billion-dollar deals. But the bread-and-butter transactions of a truly healthy market lie in the middle. Having looked at the high-end last week, the CDT Roundup this week checks out Citizens Financial’s 13th annual survey of CEOs, CFOs and private equity principals which found them warming up to what they see as an economy free of the kind of headwinds that have chilled expectations in recent years. And the data suggests a surge may be in the making as 8 in 10 PE firms see themselves as stronger buyers than they were in 2023. Claire Poole has the particulars along with the usual summary of Texas-related deal activity last week.
Litigation Roundup: SpaceX Wants Full Fifth Circuit to hear NLRB Case
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Yelp prevails against the Texas attorney general’s office in a suit that accused the website of violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, a Dallas-area law firm represents an insurance company accusing nearly 50 defendants of RICO violations related to New York workers’ compensation benefits, and a split Texas Supreme Court issues a ruling clarifying the tolling period in a healthcare liability claim.
Narrowing the Scope: The SEC Finalizes Its Climate Disclosures Rule
Following a nearly two-year wait, the Securities and Exchange Commission released its Final Rule — The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors — on March 6. The Final Rule requires publicly listed U.S. companies and foreign private issuers to disclose certain climate-related information in their registration statements and annual reports. This article identifies five key takeaways from the Final Rule.