The U.S. Treasury website says that forgivable loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) were meant to provide “small businesses with the resources they need to maintain their payroll,” but some of the loans seem to have gone to businesses that aren’t so small.
HOUSTON – Dozens of Texas law firms grabbed millions in forgivable loans from the Paycheck Protection Program, some of which donated large chunks of cash to Democratic PACs shorty afterward.
For the past several years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) has been broadening its Levee Safety Program through issuance of various guidance documents.
AUSTIN - The Texas Civil Justice League has joined with the Institute for Legal Reform of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and numerous other national and state associations to press Congress to enact protections for health care providers, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions.
AUSTIN – Perhaps highlighting the issue of financial abuse of elders in annuity transactions, a Butte County Superior Court jury awarded an elderly widower more than three million dollars after finding that he was misled into buying a $100,000 National Western Life Insurance Company annuity.
Philadelphia area viewers saw approximately 73,000 local legal services advertisements in just the first half of 2019 (January through June). The lawyers, their firms, and others who purchased these local legal services ads spent $10.9 million over the six-month span.
Yesterday (Nov. 4) was the funeral for former U.S. Representative John Conyers, who died last Sunday. A “lineup of political, entertainment, religious and sports leaders” paid tribute to him and his “remarkable 53-year” tenure in Congress, where he “compiled a near-record legacy of civil rights activism, longevity and advocacy for poor and underprivileged people.” But to us, he was also a civil justice hero.
Very few injured Americans file lawsuits. Granted it’s been awhile since anyone took an empirical look at the numbers, but when Rand’s Institute for Civil Justice did so 1991, researchers found that only 2 percent of injured Americans file lawsuits. The National Center for State Courts recently provided another perspective: “Tort cases garner a great deal of public interest but generally account for only about 4 percent of [state court] Civil caseloads….”
HOUSTON – Over the last four weeks, Elizabeth Markowitz, the sole Democrat running in the Nov. 5 special election for House District 28, raised more than $294,000 in contributions – a good portion of which was supplied by groups in Washington D.C.
AUSTIN - Any daytime television watcher has most likely seen a lawyer advertisement warning viewers of the dangers of a prescription drug. Concerned such ads might lead some to stop taking their meds, Texas lawmakers are now considering a bill that would bring transparency.
AUSTIN — Texas television viewers were inundated by more than 190,000 advertisements for legal services in the state’s three largest media markets over a six-month period last year – far more than for services like pizza delivery or hardware stores – according to a new report by the American Tort Reform Association.
The bail system has existed in America since colonial times. It addresses a timeless problem: how to ensure the appearance of a criminal defendant at trial without the need for pretrial incarceration.
Morgan Lewis partner Susan Feigin Harris has been named Texas’s Attorney of the Year for 2018, the top honor bestowed on an individual by Texas Lawyer.
WASHINGTON – The American civil justice system elicits strong opinions from both sides of lady justice’s scales. And while some argue the courts are being exploited as breeding grounds for frivolous litigation, others view efforts to reform the tort system as an attack to impede access.
DALLAS — On Sept. 20, a federal judge in Dallas ordered Dallas County to stop its practice of automatically using money bail to detain people arrested for misdemeanors and felonies, a press release states.
Governor Greg Abbott unveiled the “Damon Allen Act,” a set of proposals to reform the bail system in Texas to protect law enforcement and enhance public safety.
Mark Pulliam writes "to express my chagrin, bordering on exasperation, at the continuing hijinks at UT-Austin under the so-called leadership of President Greg Fenves."
DALLAS – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, along with 17 other groups, are seeking to overturn a recent U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule that prevents financial service providers from using arbitration as a means to settle disputes with consumers and avoid class-action litigation.
