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Magnolia O&G Acquires WildFire in $4.1B South Texas Deal - Kirkland & Ellis and Troutman Pepper Locke advised the parties in an all-stock transaction, adding 1.25 million net acres in South Texas for Houston-based Magnolia Oil & Gas. July 21, 2026
Litigation Roundup: 15th COA Splits on Attorney Immunity Question in $350M Case - In this edition of Litigation Roundup, a direct-to-consumer eyewear company alleges Perkins Coie’s failure to conduct basic diligence ahead of a planned acquisition cost it $50 million, the appellate courts in Houston wipe out a pair of multimillion-dollar jury verdicts, and a Dallas seafood company draws a fine from the federal government for mislabeling Chilean salmon as a more expensive product. July 20, 2026
Amy M. Stewart Teams Up with Fisher Phillips - A 30-minute coffee between Amy Stewart and Adam Sloustcher went into extra time and turned into a momentous meeting for the two Dallas labor and employment pros. July 20, 2026Oil Theft Ring Sold Stolen Permian Crude at Deep Discounts - Five men and a woman have pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal thousands of barrels of crude oil from Permian Basin producers and often selling it to other defendants in the conspiracy for a fraction of its value, according to U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould for the Northern District of Texas. July 20, 2026
CDT Roundup: A Week of Data Centers, LNG and Consistency - Constance and consistency remained the nature of dealmaking last week, as Big Money continued to flow into infrastructure, energy projects and everything that supports data center development.
That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup. July 19, 2026
That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup. July 19, 2026
Megadeals on Top, Middle Market Grind Below: Inside Texas’ 1H Deal Sheet - With 799 deals in just the first six months of this year, and nearly a trillion dollars in value attached to those transactions, Texas lawyers advised on everything from data centers to drill pads. At the center of it all sits the Texas Triangle of Austin, Dallas and Houston, where energy, software and finance all vying for attention. July 19, 2026
‘Heaven’s 27’ Families Seek Clarity from Bankruptcy Court - A majority of the families whose daughters died in the Camp Mystic flooding last summer asked a bankruptcy judge this week to clarify whether the automatic stay of litigation that went into effect after the camp filed for bankruptcy impacts their ability to continue pursuing claims against certain individual defendants. July 17, 2026
West Texas Jury Awards $229M in Patent Case - For infringing one patent held by Viasat that covers technology used in flash memory, jurors Thursday afternoon determined Kioxia owes $229 million in damages in the form of a running royalty. July 16, 2026
Centerpiece
The Real Harry Potter’s ‘Magic Wand — Loyalty to the Law’ - “Your boss is a crook!” Arthur Golden, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell and a lawyer for Big Tobacco, screamed into the telephone in the fall of 1998. “A crook!”
On the other end of the line, Harry Potter, then a special assistant attorney general in Texas running the tobacco litigation, who was appointed three decades ago by then-Texas Attorney General Dan Morales to lead the historic lawsuit brought by the state of Texas against Big Tobacco. Potter and Golden had negotiated the details of the historic $15.3 billion settlement agreement between the state of Texas and large cigarette makers.
“Arthur was extremely angry — livid,” Potter said. “He talked about secret lawyer contracts. I didn’t know anything about it, but it sent chills throughout my body."
In Part II of The Texas Lawbook's series on the tobacco litigation, learn the story of the real Harry Potter, a Houston lawyer whose secret power was his ethics and commitment to the law. July 16, 2026
It ‘Far Exceeded Our Wildest Imaginations’ - Then-Texas Attorney General Dan Morales sued Big Tobacco for racketeering and fraud in 1996. Thirty years later, the litigation against the cigarette makers has proven to be an annual financial bonanza for the state of Texas — more than $15.8 billion so far and another $450 million payment expected any day now. And while less than one-tenth of one percent of the payments have gone to antismoking efforts, youth cigarette use overall has plummeted. In a two-part series, Mark Curriden, the former Dallas Morning News legal affairs writer who covered the tobacco litigation full-time for three years, looks back at the historic litigation and its impact three decades later. July 13, 2026Expert Voices
How to Prepare Your Client for Mediation (So it Actually Works): A Former Judge’s Perspective - Many attorneys and clients simply show up and hope the mediator magically makes a deal for them. That’s a mistake. Here’s a closer look at why diligently laying the groundwork with clients improves your chance of success at mediation and ideas for executing this. July 20, 2026
Unsettled: Inconsistent Standards of Review for the Well-settled Defense Under the Hague Convention Fail to Protect Children - The Supreme Court's refusal to act leaves an acknowledged circuit split unresolved on the proper standard of review for the Hague Convention’s “well settled” defense, which is a doctrine with life-altering implications for vulnerable families seeking safety in the United States. This article analyzes the circuit split, the weaknesses of the “well settled” standard, and what reform could look like. July 10, 2026
Stories You Might’ve Missed
‘The Golden Age for Corporate Law in Texas is Now’ (Updated) - Never in history have Texas corporate lawyers worked so many hours, charged such enormous rates and raked in more revenue and profits than they are right now. The Texas offices of more than three dozen law firms scored record-high revenues in 2025 — and many of them surpassed their old records by tens of millions of dollars, according to new Texas Lawbook 50 data.
Citing increased demand for legal services and healthy hourly rate increases, 48 of the Lawbook 50 law firms generated more revenue and more profits in their Texas operations in 2025 than they did in 2024. April 30, 2026
