Burton Brillhart won a $3.1 million trade secrets case and a copyright victory at the U.S. Supreme Court. He finalized Bain Capital’s $2.5 billion acquisition of Varsity. But Brillhart’s really good stories are about his grandfather, Homer Dean, a South Texas lawyer for 60 years and a close personal friend of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Dean was the Jim Wells County Attorney in 1948 when the infamous Precinct 13 ballot dispute occurred giving the U.S. Senate election to LBJ. Now that’s news.
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Jury: Selgas & Green Guilty of Tax Fraud
In a unanimous verdict, a Dallas federal jury found Thomas Selgas and John O. Green guilty for one count of conspiracy to defraud the federal government. Separately, jurors found Selgas guilty of tax evasion for tax years 1998-2002 and 2005.
CDT Roundup: 21 Deals, 18 Firms, 199 Lawyers, $14.2B
The average value of M&A deals globally last year reached $389 million, the highest since 2015, and take-privates amounted to $158.3 billion, the highest value since 2007. Claire Poole discusses those and other Mergermarket statistics plus the dealmaking week that was among Texas lawyers.
Former Navy Pilot Jeff Hunt Brings Leadership Skills to Raytheon
For years, Jeff Hunt piloted E-2C Hawkeye planes for the Navy, including several encounters with the Russians. Now, he’s senior counsel at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems in Dallas, where he navigates the military contractor through a labyrinth of global laws and regulations on contracts and transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars. As The Texas Lawbook reports, Hunt also had an amazing career as a Navy JAG officer.
SCOTX Hears Case Against “Anti-Washout” Clauses
The argument before SCOTX is whether two parties can create an interest in real property that remains vested long after the agreement – or even the parties themselves – cease to be. Janet Elliott reports.
Adelle Casey has Another Impressive Year as Freeman Associate GC
In the 2nd grade, Adelle Casey watched a movie about the Supreme Court and told her mother she wanted to be a judge. Today, she is the associate general counsel of The Freeman Company, the world’s largest event marketing business, where she is leading business-changing deals. She is not, however, on the Supreme Court. Yet.
Voices: The NDTX Bench Bar
The annual Bench Bar Conference for the Northern District of Texas last week was a non-stop crush of candid judicial observations and advice litigators ignore at their risk. Here’s a sampling of what attendees heard.
Janie Perelman: ‘We get in the Weeds’
Michaels Stores Associate GC Janie Perelman is a brilliant legal strategist and courtroom tactician who seems to be able to go without sleep. She’s led the defeat of several class action lawsuits and helped prevent even more. No lawyer has ever handled a major data breach as successfully as she did. Just one warning: Don’t call her crafty.
Pioneer’s Barry Thomas – ‘Making a Difference in People’s Lives’ in the Permian
Barry Thomas’ earliest memories as a boy were with his dad out in the oil patch. Now an associate GC at Pioneer Natural Resources, Thomas is one of the most respected energy lawyers in Texas. He is also the top lawyer for a non-profit consortium of 20 energy companies that are investing time and money to improve living conditions for the people of the Permian and West Texas.
Fifth Circuit Upholds $62.9M Arbitration Ruling Against Chinese Wind Farm Investor
In a sharply-worded decision, the appeals court tells a Chinese company it can’t avoid the consequences of an agreed-upon arbitration by simply ignoring it. The beneficiaries include Dallas-based alternative energy investors.