Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Asked & Answered is a standing feature The Texas Lawbook will bring readers every other week, highlighting the work of leading Texas lawyers and offering insight into their lives outside the courtroom. In this edition, Jackson Walker partner Juan Alcala discusses representing Chevron and arguing before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Alcala recently joined Jackson Walker from Holland & Knight.
The deal, advised by Sidley Austin and Bracewell, gives Phillips 66 full control of refineries in Illinois and Texas.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Texas sues over a data breach that targeted students and teachers, a Susman Godfrey partner in Houston helps secure a $1.5 billion settlement for authors in an AI copyright lawsuit, and a final judgment is entered in favor of a luxury home designer who alleged a competitor copied its designs.
A former shipyard worker in Portland, Oregon, developed mesothelioma after working with John Crane gaskets and packing for over a decade. A jury last Friday found the company liable for the fatal cancer. The case was first tried earlier this summer but ended in a mistrial after four days of jury deliberations.
White & Case and Gibson Dunn advised on the megadeal which will enhance the ability of SpaceX to expand its Starlink "Direct to Cell" service.
Daria Russell has experienced a lot since she joined the legal team at Houston-based Mattress Firm in 2015 — more than a dozen M&A transactions, including a 2016 $3.8 billion merger, a crippling accounting scandal involving the company’s former corporate parent, a subsequent 2018 multibillion-dollar corporate bankruptcy and then a $5 billion merger with Tempur Sealy that closed earlier this year. In May, Mattress Firm rewarded Russell for her decade of extraordinary legal work by promoting her to general counsel, overseeing five in-house lawyers, two health and safety professionals and seven loss-prevention contractors. Russell, like most corporate chief legal officers, is dealing with issues ranging from artificial intelligence and intellectual property rights and data privacy issues to ESG compliance and everything digital.
The week that ended Sept. 6 saw 20 deals with a reported value of $8.6 billion. That seems, at first glance, far better than last week's 10 total deals for $3.5 billion. And it is. But not better than the 12 deals for $20 billion we saw this time last year.
But a closer look shows that the numbers were thin on money actually changing hands. First off, most of the money reported was on the capital markets side, $5.7 billion of the $8.6 billion reported. And on the M&A side, we saw $2.9 billion reported, but $1.57 of that was in a single midstream deal.
That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.
A New York jury found Vanderbilt Mining knew about asbestos contamination in its mines but failed to protect its neighbors. The plaintiff's lawyer, Sam Iola of the Dallas asbestos litigation boutique Iola Gross & Forbes-King, called the case unique due to the allegations that environmental exposure harmed his client rather than the use of a specific product.
The Southern District of Texas ranks second in a Lex Machina report released Thursday that examines which venues handled the greatest number of tort cases between 2022 and 2024.
For Part II of a set of stories examining how the first year went for Texas’ newest court, The Texas Lawbook spoke to lawyers who have practiced in the Texas Business Court about their experiences litigating complex disputes in the venue. Some of those lawyers have also practiced in the Delaware Chancery Court and drew distinctions about what differentiates the specialty courts.
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