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Mary Flood: ‘Dean of the Houston Legal Scene’

For more than three decades, reporter and lawyer Mary Flood walked the halls of state and federal courthouses in Houston, chronicling the victories and defeats of the city’s colorful legal lions. She used her quick wit and persistence to win sources, from those who cleaned the building to the powerful who sat high on the bench. Her investigative reporting forced the Hermann Hospital board to provide more charitable care and offered leads to federal agents investigating Enron’s implosion. Flood went from college dropout to Harvard-educated lawyer. When she reinvented herself as a media consultant for law firms, she became a rainmaker.

Janet Elliott

CDT Roundup: 19 Deals, 11 Firms, 147 Lawyers, $16B

In addition to its usual fare, the CDT Roundup this week includes a quarterly accounting of the volume and value of deals Texas firms reported to us during the first 13 weeks of 2024. It turns out we've logged a lot of lawyer names. We have that number, too.

Claire Poole

10 Years of Kirkland: A Bold Vision Transformed Texas Corporate Law and Generated Record Revenues and Profits

A decade later, Kirkland has 414 lawyers in Houston, Dallas and Austin. The firm last year made $200 million more than any law firm in Texas has ever made in one year. Through the eyes of those who were there at the beginning, this is the story of how Kirkland became the highest revenue generating and most profitable corporate law firm in Texas history. And firm leaders are promising they are not finished growing.

Mark Curriden

Litigation Roundup: SEC Sued Over Trading Surveillance

In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a man who alleges he was shorted two ounces of beer by Cinemark files a class action lawsuit against the movie chain, an East Texas jury hits Samsung with a $142 million patent infringement verdict in a damages redo trial, and a new SEC trading surveillance initiative draws a constitutional challenge.

Michelle Casady

GC Tabitha Bailey is ‘A Force to Reckon with for Many Years to Come’

For 18 months — from the last quarter of 2022 through the first quarter of 2024 — Tabitha Bailey faced trials and tribulations that few young corporate general counsel have encountered. As GC of Avantax, Bailey played a critical role in the $720 million sale of its TaxAct software business in October 2022. Days later, the Richardson-based wealth management firm became embroiled in an alleged data breach crisis that led to congressional inquiries, state and federal investigations, four class action lawsuits and hundreds of individual arbitrations, which required extensive communication with investors and the private equity fund buyer that was making noises about terminating the deal.

The excitement for Bailey was only starting. In the months that followed, Avantax faced its third activist challenge and proxy contest in three years, executed a $250 million tender offer, overhauled its executive compensation plan and successfully completed a $1.2 billion take-private merger with competitor Cetera. Earlier this year, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Lawbook honored Bailey with the 2023 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department. This is her story.

Mark Curriden

Testimony Ends in ExxonMobil’s $1.9B Lawsuit Against IRS

In lieu of closing arguments, the company and the U.S. government agreed to file post-trial briefs with Chief Judge David C. Godbey of the Northern District of Texas, who presided over the weeklong tax dispute trial stemming from ExxonMobil’s natural-gas mining venture with Qatar.

Bruce Tomaso

Corporate Law Firms Hired Record Number of Texas First-Years in 2023

The competition for first-year associates hit a fevered pitch 2023 as corporate law firms in Texas hired 503 brand new lawyers last fall to join their Texas offices — a 15 percent jump over 2022, according to exclusive new Texas Lawbook 50 data. Twenty-six law firms operating in Texas increased their hiring of new law school graduates in 2023, while 15 firms reduced their first-year hires and nine firms hired the same number in 2023 as they did the prior year.

Mark Curriden

Locke Lord in Merger Talks with Troutman Pepper

Both sides are confirming that Texas-based Locke Lord is in merger talks with the Georgia-founded firm. Texas Lawbook 50 research shows Locke Lord's revenues in Texas stayed flat in 2023, but profits per partner increased. An analyst says he sees growth in depth and breadth for both sides in the proposed merger. This isn't the first time Troutman has tried to break into Texas.

Allen Pusey

SCOTUS Revives Texas Landowners’ Takings Suit Against State

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously revived the lawsuit that the U.S. Fifth Court of Appeals had dismissed with a one-paragraph ruling. Daniel Charest of Burns Charest, who is the lead trial attorney for the landowners, was confident about the outcome of the case when he was present for oral arguments in January and heard what he viewed as an important admission from Texas Solicitor General Aaron L. Nielson, who was arguing for the state.

Michelle Casady

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