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Texas Lawbook Hires Jeff Schnick as Editor

The Texas Lawbook has hired longtime business journalist and editor Jeff Schnick as its new editor. Schnick, 45, is the former editor of the Dallas Business Journal and a former assistant business editor at The Dallas Morning News. He will oversee a news team of nine reporters who cover business litigation and trials, corporate mergers, acquisitions and capital markets, law firm management and business bankruptcies.

“We’re working persistently to make our news product more comprehensive across all our coverage areas, as well as to ensure that our premium subscribers are offered more exclusive data and stories,” Schnick said in a Q&A, where he discusses his background, his passion for newspapers and his plans for enhancing Lawbook content.

Mark Curriden

Power Struggle Underway in AT&T Data Breach MDL

In early June, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred to U.S. District Judge Ada Brown a group of proposed class action lawsuits brought by dozens of lawyers over the AT&T data breach. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs — who are among the 73 million current and former customers who had their personal information released on the dark web — are already jockeying for leadership positions in the sprawling litigation. 

Michelle Casady

P.S. — Lawyer Joins PUC; DBA Takes Home Slew of Awards

This week’s edition of P.S. includes an upcoming inaugural convention in Houston aimed at supporting and empowering Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, a series of awards recently received by the Dallas Bar Association and the 4/11 on the PUC’s newest board member, who happens to be a lawyer. 

Natalie Posgate

Motions Fly, Ex-Judge to be Deposed in SDTX Bankruptcy Court Romance Scandal Litigation

The litigation regarding the secret relationship between former Houston Bankruptcy Judge David Jones and former Jackson Walker partner Elizabeth Freeman heated up Tuesday when the U.S. trustee seeking to claw back $13 million in legal fees from the Texas law firm asked Southern District of Texas Chief Bankruptcy Judge Eduardo Rodriguez to reject Jackson Walker’s “no harm, no foul” defense and Jackson Walker won the battle to depose Judge Jones as part of its defense against the trustee’s efforts.

At the same time, in separate but related litigation, lawyers for former Bouchard Transportation Company CEO Morton Bouchard asked U.S. District Chief Judge Alia Moses of the Western District of Texas to reject the defendants’ motions to dismiss the racketeering and fraud lawsuit he filed earlier this year against Judge Jones, Freeman, Jackson Walker, Kirkland & Ellis and Portage Point Partners.

Mark Curriden

Ex-Highland Capital Management CEO Can’t Duck Contempt Finding

James Dondero had appealed to the Fifth Circuit in September 2022, arguing the bankruptcy judge wrongly found him in contempt of a temporary restraining order and awarded compensatory damages to Highland. Judge Leslie H. Southwick wrote that the “minor factual issues” Dondero raised on appeal weren’t enough to undo the sanction. “Undergirding our analysis of the sanctions award here is a recognition of the goal of such awards everywhere: ‘to do rough justice,’” he wrote.

Michelle Casady

CDT Roundup: 14 Deals, 16 Firms, 224 Lawyers, $8.2B

The Corporate Deal Tracker has noticed an uptick in capital transactions over the past few weeks. One firm that seems to be getting its share of CapM deals is Baker Botts. In June alone, BB reported more than $4 billion in 10 capital markets transactions. Claire Poole takes a look at the lawyers behind the action at BB, along with her usual summary of Texas-related deals and the lawyers behind them.

Claire Poole

Litigation Roundup: Primexx Energy Wants Suit Over $788M Sale Tossed

In this edition of Litigation Roundup, we offer an update from the most recent hearing in the lawsuit stemming from the $788 million sale of Primexx Energy, a threatened lawsuit over the death of Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson yields a settlement, and six officers and directors of a Houston-based clinic see an end to a $285 million breach claim.

Michelle Casady

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