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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.
Dean Omar achieved huge jury verdicts against J&J in the talc powder litigation. U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn and Texas Chief Justice Nathan Hecht retired from the bench and took jobs at law firms. The Fifth Circuit again saw the U.S. Supreme Court reverse many of its biggest decisions. A federal grand jury indicted Dallas-based Beneficient founder Bradley Heppner for securities fraud.
Jackson Walker made efforts to settle many of the claims against the firm for its role in the scandal involving former Houston Bankruptcy Judge David Jones, only to see those settlement agreements placed on hold by a federal judge. Kirkland & Ellis became the first law firm in history to report $1 billion in revenue generated by its Texas offices. And Locke Lord completed its merger with Troutman Pepper on Jan. 2.
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. December 30, 2025
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. December 29, 2025
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. December 28, 2025
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. December 28, 2025
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. December 28, 2025
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. December 28, 2025
John Nance Garner: The Texas Lawyer Who Was a Heartbeat Away - The famous saying that characterized the American vice presidency as “not worth a warm bucket of spit” was first uttered about 85 years ago.
However, the man behind that famous aphorism is largely forgotten. Lost in the tranquility of history’s footnotes stands a West Texas frontier lawyer and judge whose impact extended far beyond the courtroom. He left a significant mark on the judicial, legislative and executive branches of America’s constitutional republic. That country lawyer from the southwest who became America’s 32nd vice president was John Nance Garner.
In this special feature for The Lawbook, historian and author James Lumley offers an important review of Garner’s 50-year legal and political career. December 24, 2025
DFW Celebrates Two Legal In-house Rookies and a Lifetime Achiever - Elaine Rodriguez has been a corporate general counsel, including the past 14 years at DFW Airport, longer than Cameasha Turner and Nur Kara have been alive, but all three are being honored by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook.
ACC-DFW and The Lawbook are pleased to announce that Rodriguez is being recognized with the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Lifetime Achievement. Past DFW Lifetime Achievement Award recipients include Gary Kennedy of American Airlines, Leanne Oliver of PepsiCo, Chris Luna of T-Mobile, Derek Lipscombe of Toyota and Marita Covarrubias of Tenet Healthcare.
Turner, who is corporate counsel at Brinker International, and Kara, who is the legal director for marketing and advertising at PepsiCo North America, are the finalists for the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year. December 23, 2025
ACC-DFW and The Lawbook are pleased to announce that Rodriguez is being recognized with the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Lifetime Achievement. Past DFW Lifetime Achievement Award recipients include Gary Kennedy of American Airlines, Leanne Oliver of PepsiCo, Chris Luna of T-Mobile, Derek Lipscombe of Toyota and Marita Covarrubias of Tenet Healthcare.
Turner, who is corporate counsel at Brinker International, and Kara, who is the legal director for marketing and advertising at PepsiCo North America, are the finalists for the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Rookie of the Year. December 23, 2025
Dallas-Based DOBS Gets $1.5B Verdict in Latest Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder Jury Trial - Dallas-based Dean Omar Branham Shirley on Monday secured a $1.5 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson and other defendants in a jury trial in Baltimore, a figure which includes a whopping $1 billion in punitive damages assessed only against Johnson & Johnson. December 22, 2025
Litigation Roundup: Founder, CEO of McKinney Aerospace Company Named in Wrongful Discharge Case - In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a group of wildfire survivors, represented by Susman Godfrey, are awarded $62 million in damages by a jury in Oregon, federal indictments against the former executives of Dallas-based Tricolor are unsealed and the founder and CEO of an aerospace company in McKinney is accused by former executives he hired of firing them after they refused to commit a $1 million “theft.” December 22, 2025
Centerpiece
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. January 2, 2026
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) January 2, 2026
Expert Voices
Top 10 Legal News for 2025 - In 2025, the Lone Star State was once again at the forefront of some of the biggest legal stories of the year. Join Androvett Legal Media & Marketing as we take a look back at the Top 10 Texas Legal Stories that shaped the past year, including the immigration court crisis, fallout from the 2024 election, and threats to the judiciary. January 2, 2026
Rethinking the Investor-Broker Relationship in Tokenized Real Estate Markets - Illiquidity has always been a feature (and a bug) of real estate transactions. That prime piece of retail space is one of a kind, and you can’t click “sell” on that multifamily asset the same way you can on a share of a blue-chip company. Tokenization is changing that premise by turning the economics of property ownership into fractional tradable units that can be bought or sold through digital exchanges at the touch of a button. This shift matters for corporate counsel because once something trades like a security, the market structure becomes an additional risk on top of the investment itself. December 29, 2025
Stories You Might’ve Missed
The Legacy of Pennzoil v. Texaco 40 Years Later — The Civil Jury Trial of the Century - Pennzoil v. Texaco's legacy remains significant, as it changed how companies handle mergers and acquisitions, caused the Chamber of Commerce to designate Texas as a judicial hellhole in 1986 and directly led to two decades of massive tort reform efforts that dramatically limited the rights of Texans to sue businesses, doctors and insurance companies for wrongdoing. It also launched Texas trial lawyer Joe Jamail to national stardom and made him the richest trial lawyer in American history.
In this in-depth article, The Texas Lawbook provides a detailed timeline of the events involved in the historic litigation, as well as comments from more than a dozen lawyers about the legal strategies employed. November 18, 2025
