The year’s list of top Texas legal stories as determined by the staff of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.
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Delaware Judge to ETE in $410M Merger Breakup Case w/ Williams: ‘Pay the Piper’
A Delaware chancery judge Wednesday ordered Dallas-based Energy Transfer to pay Tulsa-based The Williams Companies a $410 million breakup fee for the megamerger between the two companies that Energy Transfer called off in 2016 after market conditions in the energy industry became abysmal. The decision follows a six-day trial in May in Delaware that The Texas Lawbook covered in-depth.
V&E’s Odd Couple Exits Stage Right
Mark Kelly and Scott Wulfe took over as co-leaders of Vinson & Elkins 10 years ago. This Friday at 11:59 p.m., their reign ends. Some V&E partners were skittish about them leading the firm. Together, they faced existential threats to the firm’s existence and implemented fundamental challenges during the past decade. They saw scores of partners leave to join elite national corporate firms that open offices in V&Es backyard. But Texas’ largest law firm by headcount also achieved record revenues and record profits. Kelly and Wulfe say 2021 was another record-breaking year for one of the most influential law firms in Texas history. For V&E, it is the end of an era.
CDT Roundup: 21 Deals, 11 Firms, 176 Lawyers, $4.7B
There are fundamental changes taking place in healthcare and biotechnology transactions. As in energy deals, those changes involve more than the sums of their bottom lines. Two of the 21 deals in this week’s CDT Roundup help make the point.
Premium Subscriber Q&A with METRO GC Cydonii Fairfax
Premium-Only Content: Cydonii Fairfax is a finalist for the 2021 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion. The Lawbook’s Mark Curriden had a chance to ask her about what outside counsel need to know if they want her business and her efforts at the University of Houston to increase diversity in the legal industry pipeline.
METRO GC Cydonii Fairfax is ‘Building a More Equitable Foundation’
Cydonii Fairfax has emerged as a leader of the Houston corporate legal community and one of the most influential role models on diversity and public service in Texas. As general counsel of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO), Fairfax is playing a critical role in the implementation of a $7.5 billion transformation of one of the largest public transportation systems in the U.S. She also has implemented internal policies and practices that have led to substantive results. Nearly two-thirds of the lawyers in METRO’s legal department are women or ethnic minorities, including the top two posts. And she aggressively sends work to minority-owned law firms.
Continued Uncertainty About Eviction Regulations in Texas
While there has been a focus on how eviction protections impact residential tenants, commercial landlords who own multifamily or mixed-use projects must be informed of current restrictions and procedures to understand the implications of evicting residential tenants. This article summarizes our path to this point, the current situation and the future for evictions in Texas.
Sarah Weddington, Advocate in the Landmark Case Roe v. Wade, Dies in Austin at 76
Austin attorney Sarah Weddington’s death Sunday left a legion of colleagues and admirers following her abortion-rights legacy from her world-shaking win in Roe v. Wade.
Q&A: David Rassin
Premium Subscriber Q&A SAExploration offered David Rassin the GC job in March 2020. There were a few things they thought he should know: the last GC and CEO had been fired
SAExploration GC David Rassin is a ‘Real Fixer Upper’
SAExploration offered David Rassin the GC job in March 2020. There were a few things they thought he should know: the last GC and CEO had been fired and faced federal criminal charges; the SEC was investigating the company for securities fraud; the company was restating five years of financials and faced being delisted by Nasdaq; and bankruptcy was a possibility. Rassin accepted the challenge and SAE is glad he did.
“It was the most intense year of my life,” said Rassin, who is a finalist for the 2021 Houston Corporate Counsel Awards GC of the Year for a Small Legal Department.