The Texas Lawbook

Eleven corporate law firms operating in Texas reached elite financial status in 2023. Texas Lawbook 50 data shows that three Texas-based law firms and eight national law firms reported at least $3 million in profits per partner and $1.4 million or more in revenue per lawyer in their Texas operations last year. https://lnkd.in/gTQ7d4dF

One little word within the text of the Texas Citizens Participation Act effectively disincentivizes First Amendment lawyers from taking libel and defamation cases on a pro bono basis. Two lawyers who have won dismissal of such lawsuits brought against their pro bono clients spoke to Michelle Casady of The Texas Lawbook about prospects for a legislative fix this upcoming session. https://lnkd.in/gu-9YPtF Thomas Leatherbury Marc Fuller Emily Carlton (Rhine)

Without legal aid, domestic violence survivor Veronica Gonzalez was almost certain she would have been forced to return to her abuser in Washington state and lose custody of her child. Getting pro bono representation prevented that from happening, but at least hundreds of thousands of other domestic abuse survivors — and over 1 million other low-income Americans facing civil legal issues — are turned away from legal aid organizations each year due to a lack of funding. Gonzalez, Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht, and two other witnesses sought to remedy this issue last week when they testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to advocate for increased funding to Legal Services Corporation. “The justice gap burdens society, the economy, businesses and taxpayers who must pick up the costs of people’s inability to make do because of unmet civil legal needs that study after study has confirmed,” Hecht said during his testimony. Natalie Posgate reports. https://lnkd.in/dXEpJND9

The Texas Supreme Court reviewed 96 cases from the state's 14 intermediate appellate courts this past term. Overall, the distribution of outcomes varied, with some courts experiencing a higher rate of affirmations while others saw more reversals or mixed decisions. The Lawbook's Michelle Casady examined the performance of the appeals courts by the state's highest judicial authority. https://lnkd.in/g7kpFjtj

Travis Torrence is the great-great-grandson of slaves who worked on plantations along the River Road in Louisiana — a swath of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge — just footsteps away from a Shell USA refinery in Convent and just miles away from Shell’s petrochemical plant in Norco. He is the great-grandson of Mississippi sharecroppers. His dad was a truck driver and his mother was a public high school teacher. Three months ago, London-based energy giant Shell named Torrence as its head of legal for its U.S. operations and associate general counsel over global litigation — the first Black person to hold the position. “My story and my family’s history are not lost on me,” Torrence told Mark Curriden of The Texas Lawbook in an interview. In this story, Torrence talks family, his days at Shell and the attributes of the outside counsel he seeks to hire. https://lnkd.in/dpd4XWSv

The Texas Lawbook has hired longtime business journalist and editor Jeff Schnick as its new editor. Schnick, 45, is the former editor of the Dallas Business Journal and a former assistant business editor at The Dallas Morning News. He will oversee a news team of nine reporters who cover business litigation and trials, corporate mergers, acquisitions and capital markets, law firm management and business bankruptcies. “We’re working persistently to make our news product more comprehensive across all our coverage areas, as well as to ensure that our premium subscribers are offered more exclusive data and stories,” Schnick said in a Q&A, where he discusses his background, his passion for newspapers and his plans for enhancing Lawbook content. https://lnkd.in/gUPAbr5j