More Stories

Last month, the Texas Supreme Court addressed the issue of judicial error in legal malpractice cases for the first time. The case is significant because it provides attorneys with certainty that they will not be held liable for injuries they did not cause.

Texas courts have never expressly adopted the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine, which allows a business to enjoin a competitor from hiring a former employee if the new position is so similar to the former position that the employee will “inevitably disclose” the business’s trade secrets. But some very particular language in a recent Texas Supreme Court decision, In re M-I L.L.C., could be a sign that the doctrine’s acceptance is indeed inevitable.

A Beaumont TV station is seeking attorney’s fees under the Texas Citizens Participation Act after winning dismissal of a libel lawsuit filed over a broadcast about a doctor’s disciplinary order. In its first decision involving a media defendant seeking dismissal of a defamation case under the act, a divided Texas Supreme Court last month reversed an appeals court and a trial court that had denied the station’s motion to dismiss.

A team of Jones Day lawyers, predominately in Houston, said Monday that they led The Southern Company’s $4.15 billion buy-in of a natural gas pipeline venture with Kinder Morgan.

“Oil and gas producers are always out of money. They just inhale capital,” observed Texas oilman Joe Bridges. That statement represents the underlying theme of a five-year literary effort to chronicle the origins and development of oil and gas independents and their insatiable need for bankers.