Biggest Texas Verdicts of 2025
Billions of dollars were awarded by juries in Texas last year in personal injury and patent infringement trials. The largest damage awards were doled out in Bexar and Harris counties.
The Key Deals of 2025: Business-As-Usual, With a Mona Lisa Smile
The undisputed dealmaker of the year 2025 was artificial intelligence.
Its needs, whether for infrastructure, software, data, cooling, tubing for cooling, electrical parts, real estate or any other basic or specialized situation, seemed to play a role, directly or indirectly, in nearly every deal reported to The Texas Lawbook this year.
Allen Pusey and Jason Philyaw sifted through the more than 1,200 M&A transactions that have passed across our desks over the last 12 months to pick the most significant deals from last year.
Stephen Myers Leads Match Group in String of High-Stakes Wins
Last December, Match Group's Stephen Myers and his legal team convinced a federal judge to rule that a class action lawsuit accusing Match's Tinder app of being intentionally addictive and seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages needed to be handled by arbitration rather than a jury trial. None of the plaintiffs, however, pursued the dispute in arbitration. Match promoted Myers to associate GC and he responded with a handful of extraordinary successes in 2025, including obtaining a highly favorable settlement in a deceptive advertising practices case brought by the Federal Trade Commission and convincing a federal judge in Delaware to grant Match’s summary judgment motion in a long-running patent infringement case.
The ACC’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Myers a finalist for the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department.
Asked & Answered with Reid Collins & Tsai’s William Reid: Books, Teaching and Trial
In this edition of Asked & Answered, Reid Collins & Tsai senior founding partner William Reid discusses his new book, Fighting Bullies: A Case for a Career in Plaintiffs’ Law.
In late November, Reid led a team in South Carolina that secured a $112.3 million jury verdict for their client. He is also part of the team representing the court-appointed litigation trustee in the GWG Holdings bankruptcy. Reid and the firm have also has represented Elon Musk's X Corp. in litigation.
Reid recently sat down with The Texas Lawbook to discuss his career and more. (Photo by Dave Cross)
Texas Lawbook Law Firm of the Year
There were scores of multibillion-dollar corporate mergers and some landmark commercial trial verdicts in 2025. The year was filled with big stories.
But hands down, the biggest story of the year was the Trump administration’s executive orders against large corporate law firms, including a handful that have offices in Texas.
Unsealed: Judge Mazzant’s ‘Coffee Cake for Jurors’ Recipe
Jury duty is no piece of cake. But at least it comes with one in the court of U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III of the Eastern District of Texas.
An avid baker, Judge Mazzant likes to treat juries in his Sherman court to a homemade coffee cake. He shares with The Texas Lawbook his recipe, and his thoughts behind the kindly gesture.
Litigation Roundup: Settlements Reached in Several FCA Cases
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Marathon Oil takes a $46.5 million hit on appeal, an Austin doctor agrees to pay $13.6 million to settle five False Claims Act cases and a few Paycheck Protection Program fraud cases are adjudicated as well.
In AI Gold Rush, Capital Markets Learn to Live Off Data
In the shengxiao, the year 2025 was represented by the snake. As the sixth of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, the snake represents both mystery and transformation.
For capital markets lawyers that is exactly what 2025 was supposed to be, a year of pipeline deals, AI-driven demand and a new presidential administration primed to relieve public companies from the inordinate burdens associated with their public-ness.
Well, it was. And it wasn't.
It's been a busier year than those passed. But capital markets have changed and are changing. The yearly stats say so. And so do the lawyers who make their living assembling them.
CDT Roundup: Coal Gets Reprieve, Wind Gets Rejected in Quiet Week
Not much was reported for the holiday inflected week that ended Dec. 27. The Roundup saw only two transactions. Only one had a reported value.
However, one Houston-based utility got a Christmas week gift from the U.S. Department of Energy.
That and a bit more in this edition of CDT Roundup.
P.S. — Austin Bar Foundation Honors Legal Leaders, Witherite Law Brings Holiday Cheer
The Austin Bar Foundation has announced the recipients of its annual gala awards, which will be held Jan. 24 in Austin. Proceeds from the gala benefit the Austin Bar Foundation, a nonprofit that funds law-related community initiatives aimed at expanding access to legal services, promoting public legal education and supporting attorney well-being.
Meanwhile, The Witherite Law Group and 1-800TruckWreck recently made a $30,000 donation to Minnie’s Food Pantry and supported its Dec. 20 Christmas Food and Toy Giveaway in Plano.
The Texas Lawbook's Krista Torralva has that and more in this edition of P.S.