Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Jurors in the Forest Park Medical Center bribery trial headed home late Monday. They will resume Tuesday after 19 hours of deliberation. Like last week, the jurors had questions. But unlike last week, those questions were answered via telephone from Toledo. Bruce Tomaso explains.
Jimmy Vallee, a top energy-focused M&A expert, has moved to Winston & Strawn in Houston with the avowed purpose of quadrupling the firm's practice there. Vallee says others are already planning to join him. Claire Poole has him on the record.
Robb Voyles faced a mountain of legal issues when he became Halliburton's GC in 2014. There was a securities class-action lawsuit seeking billions of dollars in damages, an SEC investigation into alleged misconduct at its operations in Nigeria, a nine-figure tax dispute with its former KBR subsidiary and scores of lawsuits with billions of dollars at stake related to the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion. Voyles successfully disposed of all of those risks to Halliburton's balance sheet during a time when the industry faced significant financial pressures. The Texas Lawbook has an in-depth profile of Voyles, who is the 2019 Houston Corporate Counsel Award's General Counsel of the Year for a Large Legal Department.
Two deals in the energy sector were announced Tuesday. They involved 58 Texas lawyers at six different firms and an enterprise value of nearly $10 billion. Claire Poole has the names and numbers.
Sure deals were down in Texas for the first quarter of 2019. It's not your imagination. Apparently, they were pretty much down across the globe, according to the data provider Refinitiv. But remember, the first quarter of 2018 was a particularly good one, so comparisons are relative. Moreover, there are a couple of sectors worth watching as the year progresses. Claire Poole has the numbers, as well as this week's CDT Roundup.
Law firms in Texas are engaged in a fierce battle to represent businesses, private equity funds and banks involved in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and joint ventures – and an estimated $3 billion in legal fees are at stake.
After a week of perfect spring weather, a 20-year anniversary and a $15 million coda to a fraud trial that had lasted nearly a fortnight, Houston lawyer Jared Levinthal was ready to celebrate a very, very good week.
In their monthly account of disciplinary actions, the State Bar of Texas reports discipline taken against three judges: a Waco judge who appointed a police detective as foreman of a controversial grand jury, a Parker County judge who hired and promoted an assistant with whom he was having a sexual relationship, and a judge in New Braunfels who interrupted jury deliberations in a criminal trial by announcing that God had informed him a conviction would be a miscarriage of justice. In other actions, one lawyer resigned his license, eight lawyers were suspended from practice and three received public reprimands.
The unanimous verdict does far more than exonerate Range from the $17.5 million that the plaintiff royalty owners had sought. The verdict also marks the first time in 21 years for a producer to win a case tied to Oklahoma’s marketable product rule. Litigation writer Natalie Posgate explains.
What does it take to become a corporate general counsel in Texas? The chief legal officers at Toyota, J.C. Penney, Match Group and a leading corporate executive headhunter gave their advice this week to a group of 130 members of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter. The Texas Lawbook was there and has the exclusive details.
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