Main Content
Top Stories
Centerpiece
Litigation Roundup: Dallas Panel Says 20-Month Delay by Trial Judge is ‘Abuse of Discretion’ - In this edition of Litigation Roundup, we detail a brawl that took place in the sixth-floor library of the Bob Casey Federal Courthouse in Houston, Deloitte agrees to pay $21.5 million to resolve an employment discrimination case in Dallas, and Texas reaches a settlement with Meta that will total about $1 billion. August 31, 2026
Kirkland & Ellis Steals Second Gibson Dunn Partner in August - Kirkland & Ellis announced this morning that Prerak “Pre” Shah, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, has joined its Houston office as a partner to focus on state attorneys general litigation.
Shah, who worked a year in the Texas attorney general’s office in 2016, told The Texas Lawbook that he lateraled to Kirkland because it “has an unmatched litigation platform, an exceptional client base and a real appetite for investing in areas where clients are facing growing risk.” August 31, 2026
Expert Voices
Are They Employees? The Question College Sports Can No Longer Avoid. - The NCAA just paid $2.8 billion to settle a dispute about college athletes’ rights to share in revenue generated by their sports, effectively conceding that the relationship between schools and athletes is heavily economic and not purely educational. This appears to be another key step to resolving an increasingly disputed question in college athletics: Are college athletes employees?
This is Part One of a series examining the legal battles that are reshaping college sports. August 31, 2026
This is Part One of a series examining the legal battles that are reshaping college sports. August 31, 2026
What Gov. Abbott’s Data Center Audit Directive Means for ERCOT and the Batch Zero Study Process - The audit, which ERCOT anticipates will take several months to complete, must occur prior to any additional data center being approved to move forward in the interconnection process. August 25, 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
