News on Southeast Texas Record

The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us many things about how lawyers in the United States have traditionally practiced law. While we all had a strong sense that much of the daily practice of law was more antiquated than it needed to be, leave it to a global pandemic to really bring this into focus. The crisis has tested everything from how (or if) lawyers used technology, the nuts and bolts of how you ran your practice, how you interacted with clients and your own legal and support teams, to how realistic and current your risk management plans were.

“It’s always something,” Gilda Radner’s Saturday Night Live character Roseanne Roseannadanna was wont to lament. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

“No shirt, no shoes, no service.” This is a sign we have seen in private businesses in the United States since the 1950s. So what about “No mask, no service,” as a sign of the times today?

“A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty, 'Hi yo, Silver!' The Lone Ranger! With his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early west. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear.”

Mark McCaig exposes a bit of the waste in the so-called Paycheck Protection Program that benefits Democratic candidates.

A trio of attorneys has appealed U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel’s summary judgment in favor of the state bar association.

Judges don’t always rule the way trial attorney Steve Kherkher would like them to. Maybe that’s why his firm contributes so much money to candidates running for judgeships. If the candidates he supports get elected, he might think, there’s a better chance of getting the decision he desires when he appears in those judges’ courts.

After California municipalities filed suit against ExxonMobil for contributing to the alleged effects of climate change, Exxon petitioned Tarrant County District Court for pre-suit discovery for a potential lawsuit of its own against the plaintiffs. The municipalities unsuccessfully challenged the trial court’s jurisdiction.

Before his tenure ended in 2019, Texas State Bar President Joe Longley asked State Attorney General Ken Paxton to issue an opinion on two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Janus v. AFSCME and Fleck v. Wetch.

nsurance Council of Texas (ICT) Executive Director, Albert Betts Jr., offers a conversation around the call for “fairness” in paying insurance claims.

“My torts professor taught us that uncertainty about the standard of care creates what he calls a ‘cliff problem’… When we know there’s a liability cliff—some line that will be catastrophic to step across—but we don’t know exactly where the edge of the cliff is, we will avoid the ground near the cliff altogether.” That testimony, provided by Texas Christian University General Counsel Leroy Tyner to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, puts into clear focus the tremendously difficult decisions businesses across our state and nation are facing today.

Tuesday night, during another marathon session of Harris County Commissioners Court, Commissioners voted on party lines to appoint local attorney Christopher Hollins as interim county clerk. Hollins will take office on June 1, filling the vacancy left by Diane Trautman’s abrupt resignation. According to media reports, Hollins has pledged not to seek election to the office this November.

Intellectual property has often been contentious as legislators try to balance the rights of intellectual property owners against progress and innovation. There is a fine line between promoting innovation and propping up monopolies to the detriment of competition, and poorly written, executed, or interpreted laws can promote poor policy. Most notoriously, this is seen with the rise of patent trolls, who do not really produce anything, but amass portfolios of patents for the purpose of suing alleged infringers and demanding licensing fees to keep products on the market. While some studies suggest that trolling activity has declined in recent years, trade secrets have emerged as a new avenue for filing lawsuits and extracting revenue through the legal system rather than innovating and creating new products.

Jimmy Buffett’s post-Katrina anthem offers sound advice for the victims of catastrophes, and even sounder advice for the victims of false alarms.

As many of our daily activities have moved online due to the novel coronavirus, so have criminals. And one of their targets is our children.

It’s a question confronting public officials at all levels of government – as well as citizens and business owners, who have the God-given and constitutionally-protected right to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to petition for redress of grievances, etc.

Outside of the lawyers who watch such things, few Americans know that later this week the Supreme Court will be discussing a number of cases regarding the use of police power by local government officials and qualified immunity. Qualified immunity and how it should function in society is an important issue deserving of a fair debate. Today, I offer this article as a brief in its defense.

When the U.S. Department of Justice—at the direction of Attorney General Bill Barr—announced on May 7 that it was dropping all charges against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former National Security Advisor’s years-long legal nightmare finally ended. The nightmare began on January 24, 2017, when hyper-partisan FBI agent Peter Strzok (subsequently fired), acting on the instructions of FBI Director James Comey (subsequently fired), improperly met with the newly-appointed National Security Advisor at the White House—without counsel and on a pretense—to conduct an “ambush” interview lacking any legitimate investigatory predicate. Comey later acknowledged that the FBI took advantage of “chaos” in the early days of the Trump administration by deciding not to coordinate with the White House Counsel or the DOJ before conducting Flynn’s interview.

Because Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther decided to keep her business open despite the stay-at-home order, the imperious Dallas County Judge Eric Moyé held her in contempt of court, sentenced her to seven days in jail, and imposed a $7,000 fine.

Them’s fightin’ words! Nevertheless, “a liar and a shyster” is the phrase attorney Ralph Manginello used to describe fellow attorney Truett Akin IV, and he’s not the first to call Truett untruthful.