News on Southeast Texas Record

Did U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas’ 15th Congressional District violate ethics rules that prohibit House members from “engaging in professions that provide services involving a fiduciary relationship, including the practice of law”?

TCJL today filed an amicus brief in a matter pending before the Texas Supreme Court regarding a key provision of the 1995 reforms to the Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA).

Amidst all the other tribulations visited upon these United States in 2020, we find ourselves—like a frog in the proverbial pot of boiling water—immersed in the suddenly-ubiquitous delusion of wokeness. With startling abruptness, concepts and terminology previously at the periphery of popular culture—“white privilege,” “systemic racism,” “unconscious bias,” and the like—have become household terms. Once seemingly limited to the fever swamp of academia, and even then mainly confined to a few humanities disciplines, the death of George Floyd catapulted the long-simmering (and frequently-ridiculed) rhetoric of wokeness into the headlines. Without warning, fringe organizations like Black Lives Matter unexpectedly became mainstream—complete with corporate sponsorships and celebrity spokesmen.

“The people who cast the votes decide nothing; the people who count the votes decide everything.”

Our collective perceptions of trial lawyers comes from the golden era of television, where the practice of trial law was romanticized over decades. Whether the public’s perception of the lives and careers of trial lawyers were shaped by Mason, Matlock, Becker - or even Goodman, Chiles, and Hutz - these characters brought the lives of trial lawyers into our living rooms.

Attorney Mikal Watts charges $950 an hour for his time. Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching! If you’re a client of his, you want to cut to the chase, and fast.

Sadly, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Beta Ginsburg passed away last Friday. Her death came the day after the country celebrated Constitution Day, fitting in a way. She is being appropriately honored for her service to the country. Who will replace her and when is a political question that will no doubt be a great battle. But, before that we should all remember the good judge.

We had reservations four years ago when Baylor Wortham and Justin Sanderson announced their intentions to try to succeed their fathers, 58th District Court Judge Bob Wortham and 60th District Court Judge Gary Sanderson, as district judges. Alas, our reservations fell on deaf ears and both were elected.

Perhaps unfairly, most jurists are quickly forgotten when they leave the bench. Some are remembered only in infamy: the “Four Horsemen” who blocked the New Deal early on; Roger Taney for the Dred Scott decision; Harry Blackmun as the unlikely author of Roe v. Wade, and so forth. Justices with a literary flair tend to linger in the public mind, explaining the enduring influence of Oliver Wendell Holmes and Robert Jackson, among a handful of others.

Since the dawn of the COVID-19 era almost six months ago, the way we work as a nation and as a planet have been turned upside down. While many businesses no longer have employees gather together to work in the same physical office, in some ways, our inter-connectedness has improved as we refine our technology skills and allow the virtual world to help connect our business networks and professional relationships.

Is that legal? Can they do that? Those are good questions to ask of persons in positions of authority in the public or the private sector, especially now in this era of accelerating demands for political correctness, ever more narrowly defined. No sooner do you get used to the new “rules,” then the rules change again. No matter how hard you try to comply, you soon find yourself once more beyond the new pale.

Who appointed this guy? You’d think that local government officials responsible for appointing county clerks would consider candidates with appropriate experience and reputations for integrity, not some ambulance chaser notorious for playing fast and loose with the law who’s currently being sued by a former client and accused of engaging in barratry.

You’d think a group of people could define “nonpartisanship” and agree on how to implement and maintain it: by consciously making an effort to be impartial and unbiased, not favoring one party or faction over another, trying to be moderate or middle of the road on the issues of the day and not lean one way or the other, perhaps even establishing a list of topics that the group chooses not to take positions on.

From The Lufkin Daily News “At long last, have you left no sense  of decency?” With that attorney Joseph Welch effectively ended Sen.  Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunt against alleged “communists.” Americans  were able speak more freely, and we assumed “witch hunts” were a thing  of the past.Lawyers have always been in the forefront, protecting  freedom of speech.

The coronavirus has wreaked havoc on Americans’ health as well as the health of our economy over the past several months. The real estate industry is certainly no exception. Due to challenges and unpredictability ahead, combined with record unemployment and cost-cutting layoffs, many Americans have put their plans to purchase a home on hold.

There’s no accounting for taste. One man’s meat is another man’s poison, one man’s trash another man’s treasure, and so on.

If you’ve never seen the hilarious 1990s cartoon Eek! The Cat, you don’t know what you’re missing. Eek’s catchphrase was “It never hurts to help,” and each episode demonstrated the disastrous consequences of his naive optimism.

The non-profit National Rifle Association, founded in 1871, describes itself as “America’s longest-standing civil rights organization.” With nearly five million members, the NRA is also one of the nation’s largest and most influential organizations, promoting the safe ownership and use of firearms. Through its affiliated foundation (a tax-exempt entity formed in 1990), political advocacy arm (the Institute for Legislative Action), publications, and programs, the NRA is widely regarded as the leading champion of the rights of gun owners. The NRA’s mission is “preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” Disclosure: I am a Life Member of the NRA.

Someone, please tell Siegel that money doesn’t grow on trees.

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.