Texas

  • August 20, 2025

    5th Circ. Won't Stick BP, Chevron With $11M Well Cleanup Bill

    A Fifth Circuit panel has affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a surety company's lawsuit claiming BP and Chevron need to pony up $11 million to pay for offshore decommissioning costs, saying the insurer wasn't entitled to be reimbursed.

  • August 20, 2025

    Software Co. Strangeworks Acquires German AI Tech Biz

    Computing software firm Strangeworks said Wednesday that it has acquired Quantagonia, a German AI-powered technology company, in a move to boost its business opportunities.

  • August 19, 2025

    Advocacy Groups Ask Judge To Stall Texas Redistricting Plan

    Multiple voting rights advocacy organizations asked a Texas federal judge to hear their case for a court order aimed at stalling the Texas Legislature's controversial redistricting plan, saying the proposed plan blatantly violates the U.S. Constitution.

  • August 19, 2025

    Judge Bans Texas Atty He Says Is 'Incapable Of Honesty'

    A federal judge has indefinitely suspended attorney J. Shelby Sharpe from practicing law in the Northern District of Texas after he helped supposedly erstwhile clients dodge judgments, saying the attorney is seemingly "incapable of honesty."

  • August 19, 2025

    Texas Co., Exec To Pay $12.4M In Customs Evasion FCA Suit

    A Dallas-based countertop and cabinetry product supplier and its president agreed on Tuesday to pay more than $12.4 million to settle a False Claims Act suit alleging they conspired to evade import duties on quartz products from China, with more than $2.1 million designated for a whistleblower.

  • August 19, 2025

    Lab Owner Gets 3 Years For $40M COVID-19 Test Fraud

    A co-founder of a laboratory accused of submitting $40 million in unnecessary COVID-19 and genetic testing claims to healthcare benefit programs was sentenced to three years in prison Tuesday, after a Florida federal judge credited him for the extensive cooperation he provided the government before and during a trial against his co-defendants.

  • August 19, 2025

    West Texas A&M Can't Ban Drag Shows, 5th Circ. Says

    A split Fifth Circuit has reversed a decision that allowed West Texas A&M University to ban drag shows on its campus, writing that art does not need to be like "works of Picasso, Schöenberg, and Carroll" to be protected by the First Amendment.

  • August 19, 2025

    Bribery Case Against Rep. Cuellar And His Wife Trimmed

    A federal judge agreed Tuesday to drop two counts from a bribery indictment against U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and his wife, but said dropping the counts did not warrant dismissal of the entire indictment.

  • August 19, 2025

    21 AGs Push DEA To Schedule 'Designer Xanax'

    Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and 20 other state attorneys general are urgently asking the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to schedule an unregulated substance known as "designer Xanax" under the Controlled Substances Act, saying it is contributing to overdose deaths and posing a growing threat to public health.

  • August 19, 2025

    Texas Court Unwinds Dismissals In Border Crackdown Cases

    An en banc Texas appeals court on Tuesday reversed the habeas corpus dismissals of trespassing charges against nine men arrested during state immigration enforcement operations, citing a Court of Criminal Appeals ruling that rejected claims of prosecutorial sex discrimination in a similar case.

  • August 19, 2025

    Judge To Confirm Scanrock's Ch. 11 Plan After Settlement

    A Texas bankruptcy judge on Tuesday conditionally confirmed the Chapter 11 plan of hydrocarbon driller Scanrock Oil & Gas, after the debtor resolved objections from parties including an ad hoc group, certain creditors and the U.S. Small Business Administration.

  • August 19, 2025

    Judge Denies American Airlines' Bid To Avoid Patent Claims

    A Texas federal judge on Tuesday rejected American Airlines' request to escape some of the claims accusing it of infringing patents that cover hardware allowing in-flight Wi-Fi connection.

  • August 19, 2025

    Prospect Medical Says Yale Deal Is Top Offer For Hospitals

    Hospital operator Prospect Medical Holdings Inc. has asked to assume a $435 million pre-bankruptcy agreement to sell its three Connecticut hospitals to Yale New Haven Health Services Corp., arguing it contains the "highest possible recovery" for its creditors.

  • August 19, 2025

    Booking Holdings Settles Texas Junk Fee Suit For $9.5M

    The parent company of popular hotel booking sites Booking.com and Kayak will pay $9.5 million to settle claims that it misled customers through rampant use of junk fees, the Texas Office of the Attorney General announced Tuesday.

  • August 19, 2025

    CMS Defeats 'Hair's Breadth' Star Rating Challenge

    Insurance companies challenging the "star" system for rating Medicare Advantage organizations have lost another round in court, with a Texas federal judge saying Elevance Health failed to show federal officials violated the law when rounding down scores.

  • August 19, 2025

    Samsung Fights Maxell's Bid To Boost $112M Patent Verdict

    Samsung Electronics asked a Texas federal judge to reject a bid from Maxell Ltd. to boost a $112 million patent infringement jury verdict, saying Maxell had not shown the infringement of its personal electronics patents was willful or that Samsung's behavior had been egregious enough to warrant an enhancement.

  • August 19, 2025

    FERC Grid Project Carveouts Are Unjustified, DC Circ. Told

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can't justify its decision to exempt a Kansas electricity cooperative's transmission projects from a regional grid operator's process to determine how project costs are divided before they're approved, the D.C. Circuit heard Monday.

  • August 19, 2025

    Sunnova's $118M Sale Can Proceed Despite Bank's Protest

    A Texas bankruptcy judge Tuesday declined to undo a $118 million sale of almost all the assets of solar panel business Sunnova Energy International Inc., rejecting a St. Louis-area bank's argument that the debtor failed to disclose that nondebtor assets would be part of the transaction.

  • August 19, 2025

    Linqto Says Ch. 11 Plan Will Have In-Kind Customer Payment

    Linqto and its unsecured creditors committee told a Texas bankruptcy judge Tuesday that they have come to an agreement to give customers the chance for in-kind payment in the investment platform's Chapter 11 plan.

  • August 19, 2025

    5th Circ. Says NLRB Structure Likely Unconstitutional

    The Fifth Circuit on Tuesday upheld injunctions barring the National Labor Relations Board from prosecuting unfair labor practice cases against SpaceX and two other companies, saying the removal protections that federal labor law gives board members and agency judges likely violate the U.S. Constitution.

  • August 18, 2025

    Texas Judge Stays PWFA Suit After 5th Circ. Decision

    A Texas federal judge on Monday stayed a challenge to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act after the Fifth Circuit ruled in a separate case that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission could enforce the law.

  • August 18, 2025

    College And Students Take Texas Dream Act Suit To 5th Circ.

    A Texas federal judge has ruled that bids by a state community college and a student association to intervene in a suit challenging a Texas law allowing in-state tuition for unauthorized immigrants would be "legally futile," prompting their appeal to the Fifth Circuit.

  • August 18, 2025

    Insurers Avoid Defending Ericsson In Terrorist Payment Suits

    Units of Travelers and Chubb have no duty to defend Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson Inc. over claims it paid protection money to foreign terrorist organizations so its projects and other business interests wouldn't be attacked, a Texas federal court ruled Monday.

  • August 18, 2025

    Albright Delays EcoFactor-Google Damages Retrial For PTAB

    U.S. District Judge Alan Albright is making EcoFactor Inc. wait for Patent Trial and Appeal Board proceedings to finish before scheduling a highly anticipated retrial, ordered by the full Federal Circuit, on how much Google should pay for infringing its thermostat patent.

  • August 18, 2025

    Texas Investigates Meta Over AI Mental Health Services

    The Texas attorney general said his office will investigate Meta AI Studio and Character.AI on allegations they are misleading consumers into thinking their chatbots are mental health tools, according to an announcement issued Monday, which also suggested the companies' activities may violate the state's privacy laws.

Expert Analysis

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Rulings On Relevance Redactions

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    In recent cases addressing redactions that parties sought to apply based on the relevance of information — as opposed to considerations of privilege — courts have generally limited a party’s ability to withhold nonresponsive or irrelevant material, providing a few lessons for discovery strategy, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Opinion

    Section 1983 Has Promise After End Of Nationwide Injunctions

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    After the U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down the practice of nationwide injunctions in Trump v. Casa, Section 1983 civil rights suits can provide a better pathway to hold the government accountable — but this will require reforms to qualified immunity, says Marc Levin at the Council on Criminal Justice.

  • Courts Redefining Software As Product Generates New Risks

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    A recent wave of litigation against social media platforms, chatbot developers and ride-hailing companies has some courts straying from the traditional view of software as a service to redefining software as a product, with significant implications for strict liability exposure, say attorneys at Reed Smith.

  • Opinion

    Premerger Settlements Don't Meet Standard For Bribery

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    Claims that Paramount’s decision to settle a lawsuit with President Donald Trump while it was undergoing a premerger regulatory review amounts to a quid pro quo misconstrue bribery law and ignore how modern legal departments operate, says Ediberto Román at the Florida International University College of Law.

  • Texas Med Spas Must Prepare For 2 New State Laws

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    Two new laws in Texas — regulating elective intravenous therapy and reforming healthcare noncompetes — mark a pivotal shift in the regulatory framework for medical spas in the state, which must proactively adapt their operations and contractual practices, says Brad Cook at Munsch Hardt.

  • Series

    Playing Soccer Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Soccer has become a key contributor to how I approach my work, and the lessons I’ve learned on the pitch about leadership, adaptability, resilience and communication make me better at what I do every day in my legal career, says Whitney O’Byrne at MoFo.

  • Compliance Changes On Deck For Banks Under Texas AI Law

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    Financial services companies, including banks and fintechs, should evaluate their artificial intelligence usage to prepare for Texas' newly passed law regulating AI governance, noting that the enforcement provisions provide for an affirmative defense to liability, say attorneys at Mitchell Sandler.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Learning From Failure

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    While law school often focuses on the importance of precision, correctness and perfection, mistakes are inevitable in real-world practice — but failure is not the opposite of progress, and real talent comes from the ability to recover, rethink and reshape, says Brooke Pauley at Tucker Ellis.

  • AI Infrastructure Growth Brings Unique IP Considerations

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    The explosive rise of artificial intelligence has triggered an equally dramatic transformation in the supporting infrastructure required to meet growing AI demand, and the technology used in these data centers has its own intellectual property considerations to navigate, says Vincent Allen at Carstens Allen.

  • Series

    Adapting To Private Practice: From ATF Director To BigLaw

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    As a two-time boomerang partner, returning to BigLaw after stints as a U.S. attorney and the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, people ask me how I know when to move on, but there’s no single answer — just clearly set your priorities, says Steven Dettelbach at BakerHostetler.

  • New DOJ Penalty Policy Could Spell Trouble For Cos.

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    In light of the U.S. Department of Justice’s recently published guidance making victim relief a core condition of coordinated resolution crediting, companies facing parallel investigations must carefully calibrate their negotiation strategies to minimize the risk of duplicative penalties, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • A Look At Key 5th Circ. White Collar Rulings So Far This Year

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    In the first half of 2025, the Fifth Circuit has decided numerous cases of particular import to white collar practitioners, which collectively underscore the critical importance of meticulous recordbuilding, procedural compliance and strategic litigation choices at every stage of a case, says Joe Magliolo at Jackson Walker.

  • 7 Ways Employers Can Avoid Labor Friction Over AI

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    As artificial intelligence use in the workplace emerges as a key labor relations topic in the U.S. and Europe, employers looking to reduce reputational risk and prevent costly disputes should consider proactive strategies to engage with unions, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • How Property Insurers Serve As Climate Change Harbingers

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    Thomas Dawson at McDermott discusses the role that U.S. property insurers may play in identifying and assessing climate risk, as well as in financing climate change adaptation projects, in light of global warming and shifting geopolitical realities.

  • Series

    Playing Baseball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing baseball in college, and now Wiffle ball in a local league, has taught me that teamwork, mental endurance and emotional intelligence are not only important to success in the sport, but also to success as a trial attorney, says Kevan Dorsey at Swift Currie.

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