Texas

  • August 12, 2024

    Texas AG To Investigate CenterPoint Over Beryl Outages

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Monday that his office had opened an investigation into CenterPoint Energy Inc. over its preparation and response to Hurricane Beryl.

  • August 12, 2024

    Texas Firm Says Recordings Show Call Center Deception

    A Texas personal injury law firm asked a federal judge to impose a preliminary injunction on a lawyer referral service, arguing that newly obtained audio recordings from the referral service's call center show the other company deliberately tries to trick the firm's potential clients into signing up with other lawyers.

  • August 12, 2024

    Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

    Multimillion-dollar share conversions, power struggles in a classic rock band, a good deal for fandom collectibles, and a pindown by two heavyweights were all part of the spectacle in Delaware's Court of Chancery last week. New cases involved pharmaceutical companies, cannabis, drones and liquid-gas exports. In case you missed it, here's the latest from the Chancery Court.

  • August 12, 2024

    Gibson Dunn Picks Up Weil Litigator In Dallas

    Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP announced Monday that it has bolstered its litigation and trials practice groups with a partner in Dallas who joined from Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP.

  • August 09, 2024

    Real Estate Recap: Big 4 Market Views, Gas-Ban Backfire, AI

    Catch up on this week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including what the largest commercial real estate brokers expect from capital markets in the second half of the year, how municipalities are reacting to the Ninth Circuit striking down Berkeley, California's natural gas-hookup ban, and why Brookfield Corp. is betting big on AI.

  • August 09, 2024

    Migrant Detentions In Texas Too Long, DHS Watchdog Says

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's struggles with holding detainees at its long-term detention facilities have caused prolonged detentions at three U.S. Border Patrol facilities near the Texas-Mexico border, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's internal watchdog revealed on Thursday.

  • August 09, 2024

    Pitney Bowes' E-Commerce Arm Can Tap $47M DIP In Ch. 11

    A Texas bankruptcy judge on Friday gave DRF Logistics LLC the go ahead to borrow $45 million under a Chapter 11 loan funded by its former parent, shipping company Pitney Bowes Inc., which let go of its majority stake in DRF to wind down the unprofitable e-commerce division in bankruptcy.

  • August 09, 2024

    Tesla Sued Over Gigafactory Worker's Electrocution Death

    The widow of an electrician who was fatally electrocuted this month while working at Tesla's Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, has filed a wrongful death suit in Texas state court, claiming the company negligently allowed a dangerous condition to exist at the automaker's global headquarters.

  • August 09, 2024

    Texas Justices To Answer SMU Law Prof's Defamation Query

    The Texas Supreme Court on Friday agreed to answer a question posed by the Fifth Circuit regarding the interpretation of the state's human rights act in a case involving a former Southern Methodist University law professor who sued the school and several administrators after being denied tenure.

  • August 09, 2024

    Vidal Can't Be Used Against Ex-Client At PTAB, Fed. Circ. Says

    The Federal Circuit said Friday that the initial involvement of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal in a handful of patent challenges during her private practice days at Winston & Strawn LLP isn't enough to prevent the patent board from ever deciding on those petitions.

  • August 09, 2024

    Biz Groups Urge Keeping CFPB's $8 Late Fee Cap On Ice

    The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Bankers Association and other trade group plaintiffs have urged a Texas federal judge to leave in place an injunction staying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's rule capping most credit card late fees at $8, saying the lowered fee would not serve as a sufficient deterrent for consumers.

  • August 09, 2024

    Colony Ridge Mortgage Co. Says It Was 'Office Geek' For Site

    A Texas mortgage company pushed Friday to be released from a lawsuit accusing a Houston-area real estate developer and lender of predatory lending practices, telling a federal judge that it never met with the Hispanic consumers allegedly preyed on through the scheme and that the company was "just doing paperwork."

  • August 09, 2024

    5th Circ. Blocks Transfer Of SpaceX NLRB Suit

    The Fifth Circuit blocked an order transferring SpaceX's first constitutional challenge to the National Labor Relations Board's powers and protections while it considers whether the district judge wrongly withheld an injunction blocking an agency prosecution.

  • August 09, 2024

    4 Firms Guiding Italian IT Firm Almaviva's $335M Iteris Buy

    Italian digital innovation group Almaviva S.p.A. has agreed to purchase Austin, Texas-based infrastructure management provider Iteris Inc. for approximately $335 million equity value, Iteris said in a statement Friday. 

  • August 09, 2024

    Marketer Seeking Dismissal Of Mass. Data Privacy Suit

    Texas-based online marketing company InMarket Media LLC is asking a Massachusetts federal judge to toss a proposed class action by two women who say the company secretly collected and sold location data through its apps, arguing in a motion to dismiss that the court lacks jurisdiction over the company.

  • August 09, 2024

    DC Circ. Makes Case For Restarting FERC Gas Policy Revamp

    The D.C. Circuit's recent wipeout of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approvals of gas infrastructure projects is a sign that the agency should restart a stalled effort to update its decades-old pipeline approval policy, FERC watchers say.

  • August 09, 2024

    Jury's $1M Paralysis Verdict Against Insurer Overturned

    A Texas federal judge overturned a jury's verdict and decided an insurer didn't have to cover a $1 million settlement between a former high school gymnast who became quadriplegic after taking LSD and the owners of the home where he ingested the drugs.

  • August 09, 2024

    Ads Group Nixes Anti-Hate Initiative Days After Musk Suit

    The World Federation of Advertisers is pulling the plug on an initiative aimed at avoiding advertising next to hate speech and other "illegal or harmful content," days after drawing a lawsuit from Elon Musk's X Corp. calling the program an anticompetitive group boycott.

  • August 09, 2024

    Barnes & Thornburg Taps Trial Atty As Dallas Office MP

    When Thomas Haskins joined Barnes & Thornburg LLP in 2015, he'd practiced law about six years. More than nine years later, the firm where he first became a partner has named him its Dallas office managing partner and elected him to the firmwide management committee, according to an announcement Friday.

  • August 09, 2024

    5th Circ. Affirms Engineering Co.'s Loaders Don't Get OT

    A group of workers for a screw pile engineering company fell under the Motor Carrier Act overtime exemption because they performed loading duties often enough to be covered by the carveout, the Fifth Circuit ruled, backing a Texas federal court's dismissal of their suit.

  • August 08, 2024

    Jurors Weigh $200M For Carbon Monoxide Leak Victims

    Counsel asked jurors during closing arguments Thursday in a Dallas County court to give his two child clients a voice after a carbon monoxide leak allegedly left them partially mute, saying that while his clients can't speak, the jurors can deliver a verdict to "speak for them."

  • August 08, 2024

    Auto Paint Co. Faces Investor Suit Over Competition Woes

    Vehicle paint protection company XPEL Technologies misled investors about the extent of competition it faced in the marketplace and how the changing demographics of electric vehicle buyers would affect the business, according to a proposed class action filed Thursday in Texas federal court. 

  • August 08, 2024

    CFPB Urges 5th Circ. To Revive Anti-Bias Exam Policy

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has appealed to the Fifth Circuit to reinstate a 2022 policy that expanded the scope of the agency's anti-discrimination oversight, saying a Texas federal judge's decision to strike it down last year could allow even so-called debanking to go unexamined.

  • August 08, 2024

    Texas Acts Like It Has 5th Circ. In 'Back Pocket,' Judge Says

    U.S. District Judge David Ezra accused a Texas state attorney of misleading the Fifth Circuit by hinting that he may ignore the appellate court's decision to overrule his order for the state to move a barrier deterring migrants from crossing the Rio Grande.

  • August 08, 2024

    Valve Says 'Enough Is Enough,' Seeks Patent Suit Sanctions

    Video game maker and online game store operator Valve Corp. urged a Texas federal judge to punish a Texas company that Valve called a "patent troll" in its sanctions motion for allegedly re-arguing "frivolous" legal theories and purposely taking its barcode patent infringement suit to an allegedly improper venue.

Expert Analysis

  • 7 Common Myths About Lateral Partner Moves

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    As lateral recruiting remains a key factor for law firm growth, partners considering a lateral move should be aware of a few commonly held myths — some of which contain a kernel of truth, and some of which are flat out wrong, says Dave Maurer at Major Lindsey.

  • No AI FRAUD Act Is A Significant Step For Right Of Publicity

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    The No Artificial Intelligence Fake Replicas and Unauthorized Duplications Act's proposed federal right of publicity protection, including post-mortem rights, represents a significant step toward harmonizing the landscape of right of publicity law, Rachel Hofstatter and Aaron Rosenthal at Honigman.

  • Series

    Cheering In The NFL Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Balancing my time between a BigLaw career and my role as an NFL cheerleader has taught me that pursuing your passions outside of work is not a distraction, but rather an opportunity to harness important skills that can positively affect how you approach work and view success in your career, says Rachel Schuster at Sheppard Mullin.

  • After TikTok, Tiptoeing Toward Patent Transfer Alignment

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    Following the Fifth Circuit's TikTok decision, which aimed to standardize transfer analysis in patent cases, the Federal Circuit and Texas federal courts facing transfer requests have taken small steps to consider the practical realities of patent litigation, reinforcing the intensely factual focus of the analysis, says Charles Fowler at McKool Smith.

  • Opinion

    J&J Bankruptcy Could Thwart Accountability For Victims

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    Johnson & Johnson's latest attempt at a "Texas Two-Step" bankruptcy proceeding exemplifies the way in which corporate defendants can use bankruptcy to evade accountability, limit resources available to victims, and impose flawed, one-size-fits-all resolutions on diverse groups of plaintiffs, says Michelle Simpson Tuegel at Simpson Tuegel Law.

  • Inside The PTAB's Seagen Cancer Drug Patent Decision

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    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board's recent finding that Seagen's claims for antibody-drug conjugate technology were unpatentable — for lack of enablement, lack of written description and anticipation — mark the latest chapter in the complex patent dispute as the case heads for director review, says Ryan Hagglund at Loeb & Loeb.

  • 6 Pointers For Attys To Build Trust, Credibility On Social Media

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    In an era of information overload, attorneys can use social media strategically — from making infographics to leveraging targeted advertising — to cut through the noise and establish a reputation among current and potential clients, says Marly Broudie at SocialEyes Communications.

  • 5 Lessons For SaaS Companies After Blackbaud Data Breach

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    Looking at the enforcement actions that software-as-a-service provider Blackbaud resolved with state attorneys general, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission in the past year can help SaaS companies manage these increasingly common forms of data breaches, say attorneys at Orrick.

  • A Post-Mortem Analysis Of Stroock's Demise

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    After the dissolution of 147-year-old firm Stroock late last year shook up the legal world, a post-mortem analysis of the data reveals a long list of warning signs preceding the firm’s collapse — and provides some insight into how other firms might avoid the same disastrous fate, says Craig Savitzky at Leopard Solutions.

  • Don't Sit On Bankruptcy Sidelines, 5th Circ. Ruling Reminds

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    The Fifth Circuit’s recent In re: Louisiana Pellets decision, holding that a creditor couldn’t assert indemnification defenses in a suit brought by the trustee of a liquidation trust, highlights the risks faced by creditors and other contract parties that choose not to participate in a bankruptcy, say Gregory Hesse and Kaleb Bailey at Hunton.

  • How High Court SEC Case Could Affect The ITC

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    While the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy will likely spare the U.S. International Trade Commission from major operative changes, the ITC’s ability to issue penalties for violations of its orders may change, say Gwendolyn Tawresey and Ryan Deck at Troutman Pepper.

  • 2nd Circ. Ruling Will Guide Social Media Account Ownership

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    The Second Circuit’s recent decision in JLM Couture v. Gutman — which held that ownership of social media accounts must be resolved using traditional property law analysis — will guide employers and employees alike in future cases, and underscores the importance of express agreements in establishing ownership of social media accounts, says Joshua Glasgow at Phillips Lytle.

  • HR Antitrust Compliance Crucial Amid DOJ Scrutiny

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    The Justice Department's Antitrust Division recently announced a required human resources component for antitrust compliance programs, which means companies should evaluate their policies to prevent, detect and remediate potential violations as they add training for HR professionals, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Exxon ESG Proxy Statement Suit May Chill Investor Proposals

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    Exxon Mobil’s recent use of a Texas federal lawsuit to intimidate shareholders into withdrawing a climate-friendly proxy proposal could inspire more public companies to sue to avoid adopting ESG resolutions — a power move that would chill activist investor participation and unbalance shareholder-corporate relations, say Domenico Minerva and James Fee at Labaton Keller.

  • Texas Ruling Clarifies That Bankruptcy Shields LLC Rights

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    A Texas bankruptcy court’s recent ruling in In re: Envision makes it clear that the Bankruptcy Code preempts a section of Delaware state law that terminates a member’s interest in an LLC upon a bankruptcy filing, clarifying conflicting case law, say Larry Halperin and Joon Hong at Chapman and Cutler.

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