A hearing Friday on plaintiff lawyer Randy Sorrels’s motion for entry of judgment dealt only with relatively minor calculations of a just sum – an indication that both sides expect District Judge Ravi Sandill to uphold in whole or large part last week’s jury verdict on behalf of Ulysses Cruz, who sued Allied Aviation Fueling Co. of Houston.
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Q&A with Katten Dealmaker Wade Glover
The Texas Lawbook visited with Glover about what kinds of deals he is seeing in the middle market, how his practice has evolved since making partner and the future of rep and warranty insurance.
LyondellBasell and EP Energy Finalists for 2021 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards for Transaction of the Year
The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are pleased to announce finalists for the 2021 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards who have done some amazing legal work and demonstrated extraordinary leadership during some definitely unordinary times. Today, we reveal Transaction of the Year finalists.
Two Billion-Dollar-Plus Deals in the Oil Patch
Two big deals in the oil patch may signify that the recent bump in oil prices is being taken seriously by both sellers and buyers. Pioneer Natural Resources announced a $3.25 billion sale of assets in the Delaware Basin to Continental Resources. Elsewhere Southwestern Energy agreed to buy GEP Haynesville from Blackstone for $1.85 billion. Claire Poole has the details and the names of the lawyers involved.
CDT Roundup: 21 Deals, 15 Firms, 218 Lawyers, $10.4B
ESG is gaining the same kind of investment cachet that socially responsible investing did in the 60s. And according to the data firm Preqin, that cachet has reached a noticeable level of demand from investors — to the tune of $3.1 trillion in capital assets managed by firms committed to ESG investing. More on that and last week’s Texas transactions in the CDT Roundup.
AZA Begins Next TeamHealth Trial in Sin City
Six women and two men are currently hearing opening statements in a trial that began today in Las Vegas between Blackstone-owned ER physician staffing company TeamHealth and UnitedHealthcare over reimbursement rates of ER physicians. It’s the first trial in a series of TeamHealth cases to involve a major insurer that provides health plans through employers. Litigation writer Natalie Posgate is tuning into opening statements and will report back later.
Evan Young Appointed to Texas Supreme Court
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday that he is appointing Baker Botts partner Evan Young to the Texas Supreme Court. An appellate partner who lives in Austin, Young, who is 45 and grew up in San Antonio, replaces former Justice Eva Guzman, who resigned in June to be a candidate for Texas attorney general.
Opinion: Proposing a Better Path Forward for the Texas Bar after McDonald
The State Bar of Texas’ request proposal to settle the mandatory membership litigation is not pennywise, but it is certainly pound-foolish. To have our executive director spending time fighting refunds is not a justifiable use of the job’s $300,000 salary and benefits package. The battle will cost us incredibly more in dollars than the $100 refund. Even worse, it will further alienate conservative lawyers and others for exercising their beliefs. The State Bar of Texas is going in the wrong direction. We need to do our best to assist each of our 107,000 lawyers and make them feel valuable.
Randy Sorrels: $352M Houston Jury Verdict ‘Could Have Been More’
If anything, the noted Houston plaintiffs’ lawyer claims, jurors should have given Ulysses Cruz, a paralyzed airport service worker, more for the lifetime of pain and anguish he faces after being hit by a van on a tarmac at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. And Sorrels believes the verdict exceeding one-third of a billion dollars will survive appeal.
It’s Texas Week at SCOTUS
The Supreme Court is hearing five oral arguments this week, and all five of them have a Texas connection. Two of them were scheduled to be argued 10 days after the court agreed to take up the cases – an extraordinarily fast track for the advocates. Lawyers involved in the SCOTUS cases are from Haynes and Boone, Beck Redden and Rogers, Morris & Grover. Texas Lawbook correspondent Tony Mauro has the rundown of Texas lawyers playing a role in each case.