Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
More than 30 lawyers across six firms, including the Texas offices of O’Melveny & Myers and Winston & Strawn, have worked on a lawsuit challenging the lack of air conditioning in Texas prisons, contributing over 5,000 pro bono hours valued at more than $5 million. At the end of a nine-day trial this month, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman said the case ranks among the most significant of the lawyers’ careers.
Second-generation lawyer and Bracewell partner Steve Benesh went to the University of Texas, following in the footsteps of his brother.
“For my 18-year-old mind, I needed no other reasons, other than having a brother there and Longhorn sports,” Benesh said.
Benesh recently sat down with The Texas Lawbook to discuss his time as state bar president and the issues he’s seeing in the legal practice.
SpaceX said in a social media post that it has an option to acquire Cursor later this year for $60 billion, "or pay $10 billion for our work together.” That work is aimed at creating “the world’s best coding and knowledge work AI.”
Gibson Dunn advised SpaceX, while Kirkland advised Cursor.
An American president denounces the judiciary, accusing courts of usurping power and judges of being politically motivated. His supporters warn of judicial tyranny.
The political figures being described were President Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Samuel Chase, an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
“Fooled you, didn’t I? You thought I was talking about another day,” Nathan Hecht told an audience at the University of Houston Law Center.
U.S. District Judge Alan Albright is expected to announce Wednesday his plans to resign from the Western District of Texas bench he has held for nearly eight years and to step down in August.
The Texas Lawbook 50 rankings by revenue debuted eight years ago this week. Vinson & Elkins topped the 2017 charts with $484 million in revenue generated by their Texas lawyers. They were followed by Baker Botts, Norton Rose Fulbright, Hunton Andrews Kurth, Haynes Boone and Jackson Walker. Ranked 11th in the chart was a relative newcomer to the state: Kirkland & Ellis, which reported $187 million in Texas revenue — double what the firm had reported a year earlier.
This week, the Lawbook 50 will unveil the top 50 firms that generated the most revenue in their Texas offices. Kirkland is not ranked 11th any longer.
Don Henley and the Eagles could very easily have been writing about Southern California corporate law firms checking into the Hotel California during their constant and seemingly endless, decades-long expansion efforts.
They are all checking into Texas — and with the money they are making here, they will never leave.
A Starr County jury unanimously awarded $1.6 billion to the families of two men who died in an explosion at a Pecos hazardous-chemicals plant in 2023. The 12-member jury answered the 16-question verdict form late Friday after the two-week trial in Judge Jose Luis Garza’s courtroom.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Winston & Strawn is representing the NFL Players Association in a federal lawsuit in Houston over the handling of a grievance and AZA and Beck Redden prevail on appeal in a California trade secrets dispute over a penile implant.
For the week ended April 18, the CDT Roundup reported on 14 deals with a total valuation of just over $3.5 billion, and nearly half of that value came from one deal. The prior week had 10 deals reported with a total value of slightly more than $5 billion, while a year ago at this time, the Roundup reported on 13 deals valued at nearly $2.4 billion. While total deal volume is up of late, total values are muted somewhat by a number of deals reported sans financial terms.
That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.
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