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Litigation Roundup: Former Lawyer Gets Prison, Buc-ee’s Goes After Ohio Cartoon Beaver - In this edition of Litigation Roundup, we highlight one plaintiff lawyer’s thoughts on Johnson & Johnson’s proposed $5.5 billion settlement of ovarian cancer cases, and detail Buc-ee’s latest court battle to protect its brand. August 3, 2026
AI Boom Meets Grid Limits as Texas Pauses New Power Requests - On Monday, in apparent response to concerns about potential disruption to the Texas electrical grid, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the state’s top two energy agencies to pause any new data center grid connections while the effect of those connections is studied by the state. August 3, 2026
Willkie Broadens Texas Reach with High-Profile Litigation Hires - Willkie Farr & Gallagher opened its Dallas office just two years ago, initially concentrating on transactional work. Now, the firm is advancing to the next phase by expanding its global litigation capabilities in Texas by hiring Grant Schmidt and Andrew Bean from Hilgers. August 3, 2026CDT Roundup: M&A Moves Ever-So-Slightly Outside the Data Center Orbit - As usual, a $14 billion data center deal in El Paso leads the pack alongside an abundance of M&A transactions with potential data center spin. But there were a few deals outside the large load computational orbit worthy of attention. August 2, 2026
EDTX Jury Clears DoorDash of Patent Infringement - A 12-member Texarkana jury returned a defense verdict in favor of DoorDash Thursday after a four-day trial before U.S. District Judge Robert Schroeder, finding Fall Line Patents failed to prove the delivery company infringed its patent. July 31, 2026
Texas’ First-Half Fab Five: These Firms Are Leading the M&A Break - In the first half of the year, dealmaking has been defined by an unmistakable top tier of law firms that dominate the M&A stats from every angle. Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Gibson Dunn, Vinson & Elkins and Sidley Austin are the only firms that land in the top 10 on all four core measures of The Texas Lawbook’s exclusive Corporate Deal Tracker for 1H 2026 M&A.
These five firms and their Texas lawyers formed the “starting lineup” for buyers and sellers who needed wraparound services, expertise and scale. July 30, 2026
Centerpiece
Texas Regulator’s New Leader Targets Scams, Embraces Tech - Newly appointed Texas State Securities Board Commissioner Jeramy E. Heintz said he planned to ensure that the 69-year-old agency continues to modernize its operations by leveraging emerging technologies to remain a national model for other state regulators in protecting investors and markets. August 3, 2026
Texas’ M&A MVPs: Meet the Dealmakers Dominating at the All-Star Break - The Corporate Deal Tracker’s first-half firm rankings made one thing clear: a handful of law firms are dominating M&A from every angle, whether the deal is in Houston, Silicon Valley or halfway around the world.
New data from the CDT identifies a cadre of Texas‑based M&A lawyers who clearly stand apart from the pack, but that only tells part of the story as the leaderboards are a cross-section of activity, from smaller to core middle-market transactions to megadeals. August 2, 2026
New data from the CDT identifies a cadre of Texas‑based M&A lawyers who clearly stand apart from the pack, but that only tells part of the story as the leaderboards are a cross-section of activity, from smaller to core middle-market transactions to megadeals. August 2, 2026
Expert Voices
Texas Business Court Opinion Summaries for Q2 2026 - In the second quarter of 2026, the Texas Business Court continued to build on the progress of its first two years of operation, issuing both jurisdictional and procedural rulings and a growing body of substantive decisions. The larger story of the quarter, however, was the Court’s merits opinions, particularly in cases dealing with contract interpretation. The quarter also produced several high-profile disputes and significant awards. August 3, 2026
Texas Drew the Line on AI. Here’s How Employers Are Walking It. - The Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act is reshaping how businesses hire, evaluate and schedule workers, shifting AI in the workplace from an abstraction to an immediate operational risk. With the Texas attorney general launching an online enforcement portal Sept. 1, this article gives practical advice for mapping TRAIGA across key workforce use cases and establishing a defensible AI governance framework. July 27, 2026
Stories You Might’ve Missed
The Real Harry Potter’s ‘Magic Wand — Loyalty to the Law’ - “Your boss is a crook!” Arthur Golden, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell and a lawyer for Big Tobacco, screamed into the telephone in the fall of 1998. “A crook!”
On the other end of the line, Harry Potter, then a special assistant attorney general in Texas running the tobacco litigation, who was appointed three decades ago by then-Texas Attorney General Dan Morales to lead the historic lawsuit brought by the state of Texas against Big Tobacco. Potter and Golden had negotiated the details of the historic $15.3 billion settlement agreement between the state of Texas and large cigarette makers.
“Arthur was extremely angry — livid,” Potter said. “He talked about secret lawyer contracts. I didn’t know anything about it, but it sent chills throughout my body."
In Part II of The Texas Lawbook's series on the tobacco litigation, learn the story of the real Harry Potter, a Houston lawyer whose secret power was his ethics and commitment to the law. July 16, 2026
