Texas Lawyer Blog

Car crash injures the Strong Arm

Brian Loncar, a Dallas car-wreck lawyer, was in critical condition yesterday from injuries received during a car wreck. According to The Dallas Morning News, Loncar was in his 2008 Bentley on Thursday night when a fire truck with “lights and sirens blaring” passed through an intersection and struck Loncar’s vehicle on the passenger side. According to the article, Loncar was taken to Parkland Hospital, but officials at the hospital would not confirm he was there. Loncar & Associates is a frequent advertiser on daytime television, and his Web site urges people to call in the “Strong Arm” if they are injured in a car wreck.
--- John Council

Committed to being uncommitted

Boyd Richie, a solo from Graham, is the Young County attorney and the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party since 2006. But it's his other role, as a still-uncommitted super delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August, about which Boyd is not coming to the phone. Instead, Boyd -- whose wife Betty is also an uncommitted super delegate, giving new meaning to the term "power couple" -- refers all inquiries to Hector Nieto, the Texas Democratic Party spokesman. Nieto says Boyd has told him that he will not choose between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton until after the June 6 to June 8 Texas Democratic Convention. "His policy until then is to remain uncommitted," says Nieto. Five other Texans, including Robert Strauss, the former U.S. ambassador and founder of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, and U.S. Representative Nick Lampson (D-Houston) are listed on a blog tracking the uncommitted. Neither Strauss nor Lampson returned calls about any selection they've made between Obama and Clinton either.
-- Miriam Rozen

Disney in dissent

This is no Mickey Mouse deal.  To express his dissent in In Re: McAllen Medical Center Inc., Texas Supreme Court Justice Dale Wainwright quotes the lyrics from 1992’s Academy Award-winning song, “It’s a Whole New World,” from the Disney animated film “Aladdin.”  At issue in McAllen Medical Center is whether the state’s Supreme Court has jurisdiction over the interlocutory petition for a writ of mandamus in a med-mal case. In the May 16 decision, the high court’s majority determines it has jurisdiction.  Wainwright disagrees, writing, “A whole new world in mandamus practice . . . is here.”
-- Mary Alice Robbins

In whose space will MySpace litigate?

On April 30, U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis remanded a case against MySpace Inc. that was originally filed in Dallas' 298th District Court. Back on Dec. 6, 2007, parents of 15-year-old "Julie Doe" filed the case in the 298th, after their daughter committed suicide after being sexually assaulted by Kiley Ryan Bowers, a man whom she met and corresponded with through MySpace. In their original petition, the parents allege that Bowers has been convicted of the sexual assault, sentenced to the federal penitentiary and currently is serving his term in Seagoville. In February, Bowers, who is a defendant in the civil case along with MySpace, persuaded 298th District Judge Emily Tobolowsky to send the case to federal court. But Solis ruled that removal was improper. So now it's back in the 298th.
-- Miriam Rozen

The Special Olympics needs lawyers

Well, actually, they just need people -- about a thousand of them, as soon as possible -- to help out at the 2008 Summer Games next weekend, May 23-25, at the University of Texas Arlington campus. And would you believe, as of Thursday, there was NOT A SINGLE LAW FIRM IN TEXAS THAT'S SIGNED UP TO HELP! That's according to volunteer coordinator Andi Kelley, who says the organization is about a thousand volunteers shy of their goal of having a volunteer for every one of the 2,800 developmentally disabled athletes participating in these games, the largest of all the state competitions. Kelley says help is needed in every area of the games. Volunteering couldn't be easier -- from now until Monday, you can choose where you want to pitch in. Just log on to the site and click on the "volunteers needed link" on the right side of the page. After Monday, you can still sign up online; check the site for available spots. And Kelley says that you can even show up, day-of, and she'd be happy to put you to work.
-- Jenny B. Davis

UPDATE: A tale of two settlements mea culpa

There was an error in my earlier post on this item. Scott Summy says he left Cooper & Scully in February 2002. My apologies.

-- John Council

Skool daze

If you're like me, you’ve frittered away another perfectly good hour surfing Abovethelaw.com. (Unlike you, however, it’s actually my job to read blogs. Heh heh!) Anyway, the latest post boasts the law schools with the highest and the lowest attrition rates, based on information available from the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. Here’s what the ABA says about total attrition rates at Texas law schools:

Baylor University School of Law: 7.23 percent
University of Houston Law Center: 1.79 percent
SMU Dedman School of Law: 1.81 percent
South Texas College of Law: 4.45 percent
University of Texas School of Law: 2.13 percent
Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law: 6.99 percent
Texas Tech University School of Law: 2.99 percent
Texas Wesleyan University School of Law: 10.15 percent

Want to check out a different school? (Maybe your managing partner’s?) Click here.
-- Jenny B. Davis

Temp to perm

After serving almost a year as interim dean of St. Mary’s University School of Law, Charles Cantu has the job on a permanent basis.  University President Charles L. Cotrell announced today that Cantu is the law school’s seventh dean.  Cantu, who received a JD from St. Mary’s, has been a faculty member there for 42 years.  He should know his way around the campus.
-- Mary Alice Robbins

Lat attack!

Isn’t it always the case: You turn your back on your firm for two minutes, and suddenly it’s the starring post on a snarky legal tabloid Web site. That’s what happened to Chris LaFollette, partner-in-charge of Akin Gump’s Houston office, who was in the midst of a business trip when she got an e-mail announcing that an internal firm memo offering its lawyers 22 Summer Program Do’s and Don’ts had been posted – and embellished, natch -- on blawger David Lat’s AboveTheLaw.com. Thankfully, LaFollette did not adopt the stance of one big firm recently skewered by ATL for actually recording an, ahem, motivational firm theme song – that is, she didn’t freak out (click here for an ABC news video account of NixonPeabodyGate). Although LaFollette says she has yet to read the post, she returned TexParte’s call immediately and called the entire incident “just kind of a non-event.” Indeed it sort of was – even Lat concedes the firm’s advice-filled memo is “pretty sound.” LaFollette says the list of “common sense reminders” was compiled using suggestions submitted by actual associates, the kind of stuff that’s just helpful to remember in the wake of incoming 1Ls and 2Ls. So what do the 15 summer clerks who started on Monday think of their firm’s newly established cybercred? Says LaFollette, “You know, I have been in Denver since Sunday, and I haven’t even had the chance to say ‘Good morning’ to them.”
-- Jenny B. Davis

A tale of two settlements

On May 7, Dallas-based Baron & Budd secured a $422 million settlement -- the largest ever involving a water pollution case -- for 153 public water providers. But the settlement has another Dallas firm interested in the result. Baron & Budd’s clients had sued various oil companies in what became federal multidistrict litigation in the Southern District of New York. Since 2003, Scott Summy, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs, and five other Baron & Budd lawyers devoted almost all of their time and energy working the case, in which their clients accused the oil companies of contaminating drinking water with the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE). “The damages we were suing for was the cost to take it out of the water supply before it was served to the public,” says Summy, who heads Baron & Budd’s water contamination group. In late 2003, Summy moved from Dallas-based Cooper & Scully to Baron & Budd. That same year Cooper & Scully sued Summy, a former shareholder, as well as Baron & Budd shareholders Russell Budd and Fred Baron, and their firm, alleging the defendants caused Cooper & Scully at least $14 million in damages after Baron & Budd hired Summy. Summy helped develop Cooper & Scully's environmental litigation practice, according to the third amended petition in Cooper & Scully v. Summy, et al. Cooper & Scully alleged that the defendants took possession of money from settlements that belong "to Cooper & Scully and have improperly withheld that money" – allegations the defendants denied. The parties in that case reached a confidential settlement on Jan. 27, 2006. “I got all of these cases after I left [Cooper & Scully]. These cases were not part of that dispute,” Summy says of the recent MTBE settlement. As for the Cooper & Scully litigation, Summy says: “That dispute was settled amicably. I wish them well. . . .”  But R. Brent Cooper, a partner in Cooper & Scully, notes, “All I can say is we saw the information on the New York settlement, and we are reviewing it in light of our settlement.”
--- John Council

May it please the -- who are you?

When lawyers get ready to argue a writ of mandamus in Clear Channel Communications Inc. et al. v. Citigroup Global Markets Inc., et al. on Friday before the Texas Supreme Court, they’ll see two unfamiliar faces staring back at them from the bench. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Austin 3rd Court of Appeals Justice G. Alan Waldrop and 157th District Court Judge Randall W. Wilson of Houston to hear the case after high court Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson and Justice Dale Wainwright recused themselves. The issue is whether a $22 billion loan dispute between Clear Channel and several banks will be litigated in Texas or New York. The justices rarely explain the reasons for the recusals and didn’t this time. But Jefferson really didn't have to explain his reasons; the chief justice's brother Lamont Jefferson of Haynes and Boone represents the bank defendants in the case. Wainwright’s connection to the case is a little less clear. By tradition, justices at the high court recuse themselves from any case that was handled by a firm while they were still working at that firm or if they have a financial interest in the case. Wainwright worked at Haynes and Boone from 1996 until 1999. But he’s been away from the firm for so long it’s doubtful that’s the reason he’s declining to hear the mandamus.
-- John Council

Don't read this if you're feeling insecure

Stephen Shackelford Jr., an associate with Susman Godfrey in Dallas, earned the highest score on the February bar exam, just finished clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and twice earned the highest grade point average in his class at Harvard Law. Plus, he's not just book smart, he's penny-wise: He works for a firm where last year's profits per partner totaled more than $3 million.
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys

O’Quinn, firms prevail in legal-mal appeal

Sometimes when you lose, you win. And that’s what happened May 8 to a group of firms -- including one founded by plaintiffs lawyer John O’Quinn -- in a legal-malpractice case decided by Houston’s 1st Court of Appeals. In Grider v. O’Brien, et al., Rebbeca Dunn Grider sued O’Quinn and various firms over the way they handled her medical-malpractice suit, which Grider had lost at trial and on appeal. In her legal-mal suit, Grider alleged, among other things, that her lawyers in her med-mal suit advised her not to appeal the verdict and failed to calculate correctly the due date for her notice of appeal. A trial court dismissed Grider’s legal-malpractice suit on summary judgment and the 1st Court affirmed, because the firms that represented Grider were not the “proximate cause” of her loss in the med-mal case. Wrote Hanks, “Our review of the merits of Grider’s underlying medical malpractice case reveals that she would not have prevailed at the appellate level. Grider thus cannot prevail on her legal malpractice claim against the law firms because the law firms’ negligence did not proximately cause her damage.”

-- John Council

Never underestimate the power of a political firestorm

Timothy O'Hare, an SMU-trained lawyer who opened the Offices of Timothy O'Hare & Associates in 2001, is the newly elected mayor of Farmers Branch, winning 64 percent of the vote on Saturday. As mayor pro tem, O'Hare has led Farmers Branch's fight to keep illegal immigrants from renting housing. In April, he reported raising $47,000 for his election campaign. The city has spent $727,607 to date on legal fees defending the rental ban, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Could it be that all the free media coverage generated by the controversy helped his margin of victory more than the $47,000?
-- Miriam Rozen

Katrina cases blow into Beaumont

Beaumont-based Provost Umphrey has gained about 200 clients who are suing State Farm related to the insurer's handling of their Hurricane Katrina-related claims, according to a May 10 article in the Sun Herald newspaper of Gulfport, Miss. The hiring of Provost Umphrey came after  the December 2007 indictment of Mississippi plaintiffs attorney Richard F. "Dickie" Scruggs and his subsequent guilty plea, the article states; Scruggs had to give up the Katrina cases after federal authorities charged him with conspiring to bribe a judge. State Farm then successfully petitioned to have attorneys who had worked with Scruggs dismissed from the case. The article states that Don Barrett, one of those dismissed attorneys, wrote to his ex-clients to suggest that they hire Provost Umphrey. Barrett, of the Lexington, Miss.-based Barrett Law Office, told the Sun Herald that he knows the firm's managing partner Walter Umphrey from the 1990s, when they worked on Mississippi's tobacco litigation together.
-- Jonathan Fox

Jamail giving big bucks to UT law

Trial lawyer Joseph D. Jamail Jr. of Houston’s Jamail & Kolius has given $15 million to the University of Texas at Austin, according to an announcement today by the university. The law school, where Jamail earned his J.D. in 1953, will use $10 million of the endowment to create a fund for faculty recruiting and retention. The school of nursing will use $2.5 million for faculty recruiting and retention and to create fellowships for doctoral candidates. The remaining $2.5 million will support an advising program for freshmen and prospective students.  Jamail earned a bachelor's degree at the university in 1950. The university is also naming one of its public rooms – Main 212 – the Lee Hage Jamail Academic Room in honor of Jamail’s late wife.
-- Jeanne Graham

Siegler resigns from Harris County DA’s Office

Kelly Siegler, the prosecutor who recently lost the primary election to be the Republican nominee for Harris County district attorney, resigned from the DA’s office May 9. Her resignation is effective today, says Scott Durfee, the office’s general counsel. Durfee says Siegler, who took a leave while she campaigned for office, returned to work as the chief of the Special Crimes Bureau at the DA’s office shortly after the April 8 primary election runoff. Siegler, a longtime prosecutor, lost the runoff to Pat Lykos, a former state district judge in Harris County. Lykos will face former Houston Police Chief C.O. “Brad” Bradford, the Democrats’ nominee, in the November election. The winner will fill the job that became vacant with the resignation last February of former DA Chuck Rosenthal. Siegler did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. In April, Gov. Rick Perry appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Magidson of the Southern District of Texas to serve as Harris County DA through December. In a written statement, Magidson writes, “Ms. Siegler has tirelessly served the citizens of Harris County during her long and distinguished prosecutorial career. She has been a steadfast advocate for crime victims, a pioneer in the art of cold case prosecution, and a charismatic role model for young prosecutors. Her leadership will be missed, but I am sure she will succeed in whatever she chooses as her next endeavor.”
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys

Baron & Budd, former associate victorious

On May 8, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court’s decision to dismiss a case in which a jury found that a former Baron & Budd associate had breached his fiduciary duty to three clients by deliberately lying to them about the status of their asbestos case. In February 2007, a federal jury in Dallas awarded Baron & Budd clients Karin Jacobs, Patria Jacobs and JoeAnn Frost $129,000 against former Baron & Budd associate Ken Tapscott. Specifically the jury found that Tapscott had breached his fiduciary duty when he “deliberately lied” to his clients by telling them that all of the asbestos defendants they sued in 1997 had agreed to settle the case when, in fact, defendant Pittsburgh Corning had not settled. The jury also found that Baron & Budd did not breach its fiduciary duty to the clients by abusing power-of-attorney agreements. In April 2007, U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater granted a defense motion for summary judgment as a matter of law in Jacobs, et al. v. William K. Tapscott Jr. and Baron & Budd, a motion the defendants had filed before the jury returned the verdict. In his opinion, Fitzwater wrote that the plaintiffs had not shown that Tapscott had breached his fiduciary duty by deliberately lying about the settlement. Rather, the judge wrote, the plaintiffs argued that concealment of the truth from them was part of Tapscott’s alleged breach of fiduciary duty, and that is not a claim that survived Fitzwater’s pretrial summary judgment ruling. “Plaintiffs’ counsel maintained that this is a concealment case,” Fitzwater wrote, referring to arguments they made opposing the summary judgment motion filed by the defendants. “Although plaintiffs’ claim has a concealment component — that Tapscott did not tell plaintiffs that Pittsburgh Corning had not settled — it functioned as the predicate for the assertion that he had deliberately lied by telling them the entire Jacobs litigation had settled," Fitzwater wrote. In a per curiam opinion released on May 8, the 5th Circuit agreed with Fitzwater. “We agree that the court correctly granted summary judgment as a matter of law,” according to the opinion. Tapscott left Baron & Budd after he was elected to Dallas County Court-at-Law No. 4 in 2006.

-- John Council

Credibility of eyewitnesses questioned

The floor of the Texas Senate chamber buzzed on May 8 with proposals to help stop wrongful convictions. What was billed by its sponsor -- state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston -- as a roundtable discussion about the prevention of wrongful convictions drew a big crowd of prosecutors and judges as well as nine of the 33 people in Texas who have been exonerated with DNA testing since 2001, according to the Justice Project, a Washington, D.C.-based group. The discussions, according to press accounts, led to a wide range of legislative and regulatory proposals being tossed around --with several focused on changing the way the criminal justice system deals with eyewitness accounts, which often are erroneous and can lead to wrongful convictions. The Associated Press reported that Ellis pledged “to sponsor a bill during next year's legislative session that would mandate police departments' use of specific procedures when presenting live lineups or photo arrays to eyewitnesses.”  The Grits for Breakfast blog noted that Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Barbara Hervey said she “is interested in pursuing either statutory or court-ordered changes in eyewitness ID methodologies.” But the Houston Chronicle reported that Jeff Blackburn, senior counsel of the Innocence Project of Texas, was not so sanguine. "For every exonerated up there [on the podium], there are probably 300 people in TDCJ [Texas Department of Criminal Justice] who are innocent and need to get out," he said.
-- Miriam Rozen

Checking paychecks

Dallas solo Betsy Whitaker, the 2003-2004 State Bar of Texas president, will head the  Judicial Compensation Commission tasked with studying judges’ salaries and making recommendations to the Texas Legislature. Gov. Rick Perry announced today that he has appointed Whitaker and eight other members of the commission. “My intent is to work with the commission to provide the analysis the Legislature needs,” Whitaker says. Part of the mix they will consider includes information about judicial compensation in the federal court system and other state court systems, she says.  The Legislature passed H.B. 3199 to create the commission. The legislation requires the commission to make recommendations to the Legislature prior to each session on what the compensation level should be for justices and judges on the Texas Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals, courts of appeals and district courts.
-- Mary Alice Robbins