Injured Man Gets $9.45M Jury Verdict Against Dallas Hotel
While walking his dog at a hotel in Uptown Dallas, a man fell and suffered serious injuries. A Dallas County jury has awarded him more than $9 million for the incident.
Winter Storm Uri Victims Ask SCOTX to Reinstate Their Claims
Lawyers for about 20,000 Texans and Texas businesses have asked the Texas Supreme Court to revive their Winter Storm Uri-related lawsuits and allow their negligence claims against power generators such as Luminant, NRG Power and Calpine to go to trial. In court documents filed Thursday, Dallas appellate law expert Ann Saucer told the justices that a 2023 decision by the First Court of Appeals in Houston that the power generators are immune from the Winter Storm Uri lawsuits “relied on invented facts” and “stifles the common law and threatens legal ossification and economic stagnation” and needs to be reversed. (Feb. 2021 AP file photo)
Flowserve, Chart Industries Agree to Combine in $19B Merger
The combination expects to exploit the growing demand in energy and data infrastructure, particularly in the lucrative aftermarket for upgrades in industrial fluid controls. Cravath and Winston & Strawn advised on the deal.
New UT Law Grads Make Courtroom Debut in Federal Appeals Arguments
In their career debuts, two newly minted University of Texas law school graduates and incoming Kirkland & Ellis associates faced pointed judicial questioning from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in a prison conditions case. Gabrielle Olubanke Howells and Lizeth Badillo Garcia spoke with The Texas Lawbook about rising to the rare occasion of presenting oral arguments in a federal appeals case before even taking the bar exam.
Legislation Aims to Boost Texas as a Friendly Place to Incorporate and Settle Disputes
A new law makes it more difficult for shareholders to challenge corporate decisions through litigation. A second bill headed to the governor’s desk would enhance the fledgling Texas Business Court’s authority, although lawmakers decided for now against expanding the system to rural Texas. (Photo by Ricardo Garza)
Holland & Knight Files Motion to Dismiss GWG Trustee’s Fraud Suit
This week, the law firm Holland & Knight and its partner Bill Banowsky asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur to dismiss a bankruptcy trustee’s fraud lawsuit against them for failure to state a claim. Holland & Knight and Banowsky argued the trustee had obscured “the facts upon which it must rely for wrongdoing against defendants in this case.”
Sunnova Selects Bracewell, Alvarez & Marsal for Bankruptcy Advisors
Residential solar company Sunnova TEP Developer, a subsidiary of Houston-based Sunnova Energy International, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week in the Southern District of Texas.
Lawbook 50: Four Texas Firms Growing East, West and Across the Seas
Baker Botts, Haynes Boone, Bracewell and Vinson & Elkins employed employed 2,360 lawyers and generated nearly $2.9 billion in firmwide revenues in 2024. All four Texas-headquartered corporate law firms reported record revenues and record profits in 2024, according to the Texas Lawbook 50. The data also shows another interesting trend: All four are growing more than twice as fast in their offices outside of Texas than they are in their home state operations.
Report: Judge Gilstrap Again the King of Patent Litigation
Patent infringement litigation has mostly been on the decline across the U.S. for the past three years, but not in the Eastern District of Texas, which has re-established its courts as the preferred destination for disputes regarding patent infringement. A new report by legal analytics firm Lex Machina shows that U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap of Marshall was assigned 795 new patent lawsuits in 2024 — six times more than any other federal judge in the U.S.
V&E, Susman Godfrey Alums Launch Litigation Finance Firm
Lauren Harrison and Mani Walia have clerked for federal appellate judges, practiced at premier law firms and done pioneering work in the world of litigation funding. This week, the duo launched Signal Peak Partners, a Houston-based investment firm that customizes litigation financing, private credit solutions and monetization options for plaintiffs and their lawyers.