Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Dallas County Court at Law Judge D’Metria Benson said the mandatory mask mandate that she ordered for all participants in her courtroom is necessary to protect a personal health condition that makes her “highly susceptible to infection.”
But the lawyer who originally made the allegations said he has recently witnessed Judge Benson at campaign fundraisers and events where neither the judge nor anyone was wearing a mask.
Carson Young, a commercial litigation partner, has joined Latham & Watkins in Houston from Kirkland & Ellis. He will focus his practice on complex commercial disputes and high-stakes litigation matters.
Blank Rome announced this week that veteran bankruptcy attorney Buffey Klein is joining their Dallas office. Klein leaves Husch Blackwell after 23 years, the last three as the firm’s Dallas managing partner.
Jason Cross and Preston Enoch, commercial litigation partners, have joined BakerHostetler in Dallas from Spencer Fane. The pair joined the firm’s litigation practice group and commercial litigation team and will focus their practices on complex commercial disputes, trials and arbitration matters. The Texas Lawbook caught up with them about trends they are seeing in their practice areas and more.
Texas Instruments, Intel and two other semiconductor and technology companies are asking a Dallas federal judge to dismiss lawsuits brought by five Ukrainian citizens who claim that microchips, processors and programmable devices made by the four companies are being used by the Russian military in its war against Ukraine. A star-studded crew of trial lawyers on both sides of the litigation will present arguments Tuesday to U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater.
NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy announced Monday an agreement to merge in an all-stock transaction valued at $66.8 billion. Kirkland & Ellis advised NextEra with a team led by Zach Savrick and Andy Calder in Houston with David Feirstein, who works from Houston and New York, and Brooksany Barrowes in Washington, D.C. Dominion Energy is being advised by McGuireWoods.
For the week ended May 16, the CDT Roundup reported on 12 deals – eight of which were in capital markets – with a total value of about $6 billion, which are both down from the prior week’s 21 deals valued at $11.3 billion.
Despite the light slate, last week’s transactions were dominated by energy of all kinds.
As the corporate world focuses on artificial intelligence, global disruption caused by tariffs and now the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, ExxonMobil has quietly undertaken two massive, strategic corporate restructurings that dramatically change the business by implementing its “Retail Voting Program” and filing to redomicile from New Jersey to Texas.
While each of these transformational efforts required teams of in-house and outside counsel, lawyers agree that there is one critical common denominator in making these initiatives successful: ExxonMobil Managing Counsel David Kern. ACC Houston and The Texas Lawbook have named Kern as the recipient of the 2026 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department.
In this Q&A with The Texas Lawbook, David Kern discusses the traits he seeks in outside counsel, what outside counsel need to know when working with him and more.
The multimillion-dollar lawsuits were piling up. Dozens of them, accusing LyondellBasell of “unsafe and hazardous practices” that led to a chemical leak in 2021 at its La Porte facility, causing two deaths and scores of injuries. Legal analysts predicted the Houston-based chemical company would be tagged with damage awards in the billions of dollars. The job of defending LyondellBasell fell to its 65-attorney legal department, led by its longtime general counsel Jeff Kaplan.
The result: 45 cases dismissed on summary judgment, 20 cases settled for nuisance value, three cases settled with funds from indemnitors and fatality case settlements fully reimbursed by the insurance carrier. And Kaplan and Lyondell are the recipients of the 2026 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Legal Department of the Year.
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