Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
After Rob Vartabedian brought on Marc Katz and his labor and employment team from DLA Piper in February, he told The Texas Lawbook he was “a little exhausted by expansion.”
But that was six months ago. On Monday, Vartabedian Katz Hester & Haynes announced it is bolting on an intellectual property litigation practice with the addition of a trio of partners from McKool Smith.
Dallas trade lawyer Ogbo Ossai joined Stinson earlier this summer after operating his own firm for a dozen years. The Lawbook caught up with Ossai about his move and “one of the most dynamic times” to be an international trade lawyer.
Jackson Walker advised Maverick Power in its $1.75 billion acquisition by British power products manufacturer nVent. The deal positions nVent to provide key power products for data center power and backup needs. Foley & Lardner advised nVent.
While the summer heat continues to scorch the state, the Texas M&A market has certainly cooled. There wasn’t much activity for the week ended Aug. 29, with nary a capital markets transaction. That left the CDT Roundup with seven M&A and funding transactions with a combined disclosed value just over $3 billion.
Texas’ reputation as the nation’s top venue for patent disputes hasn’t faded, according to a new report from Lex Machina that shows a remarkable 40.4 percent of all patent litigation in the country from 2023 through 2025 was adjudicated in the state.
McKool Smith has added veteran first-chair trial lawyer Mary-Olga “Mo” Lovett as a principal in their Dallas office, where she will focus on complex commercial and intellectual property litigation.
Also in this edition of P.S., a University of Houston Law Center professor and Phillips 66 General Counsel Vanessa Allen Sutherland earn prestigious recognitions.
For the third time, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has sent a Texas prisoner’s long-running sleep-deprivation lawsuit back to a federal district court, finding the judge had again applied legal standards the appeals court had previously rejected. Since 2019, Haynes Boone has dedicated about 1,200 hours to the case.
U.S. District Judge Alan Albright significantly reduced the damages award from $9.2 million to $1 million in favor of GlobalFoundries, ruling that the plaintiff’s damages model was legally unreliable.
For more than four years, two competitors in the senior-citizen insurance space had battled through a $17 million trade secrets dispute in a Chicago federal court. This week, a judge held that Bankers Life and Casualty Co. was entitled to just $2 in damages.
© Copyright 2026 The Texas Lawbook
The content on this website is protected under federal Copyright laws. Any use without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.
