Texas Lawyer Blog

This week in In-House Texas

Rock & Role: GC Finds Solid Ground in Stone Business

Proxy Report Eyes Executive Pay Votes

Seven Mindsets of Effective General Counsel

Jurisdiction Issues in Global Intellectual Property

Kirtsaeng, Grey-Market Goods and Global Business

Federal Circuit Polices Damages for Patent Infringement

Texas Supreme Court won’t hear Judge Carlos Cortez’s attempt to seal records

The Texas Supreme Court today denied a petition for review filed by 44th District Court Judge Carlos Cortez. The high court rejected Cortez’s attempt to keep his own deposition and two witness statements related to a defamation lawsuit he filed against a Dallas attorney out of public view.

Texas Lawyer has intervened in the case to get access to those documents.

Michael Northrup, a shareholder in Dallas’ Cowles & Thompson who represents Cortez, says his client likely will file a motion for rehearing with the high court in Judge Carlos Cortez v. Coyt Randal (Randy) Johnston.

“And I also believe that, under [Texas Rules of Civil Procedure] Rule 76(a), we are still entitled to have a hearing about whether the documents should be sealed with notice posted at the courthouse,” Northrup says.

Cortez did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Randy Johnston, a partner in Dallas’ Johnston Tobey, was a defendant in the case until Cortez nonsuited the case. Johnston says the ruling means that Cortez’s deposition and the witness statements eventually will become public after a mandate issues allowing the trial court to lift the seal.

“This really is not a shocking or incredible ruling,” Johnston says.

And Johnston contends that Cortez will be not be allowed to return to the trial court to attempt to seal the documents under Rule 76a, because Cortez waived that right earlier in the litigation when he dismissed his claims.

On Sept. 4, 2012, Texarkana’s 6th Court of Appeals ruled that the documents at issue were "court records" and therefore were available for public view. Joe Larsen, special counsel in Sedgwick in Houston who represents Texas Lawyer, says he expects that a motion for rehearing at the trial court would be denied.

Before the documents can be made public, Larsen says, the Supreme Court will “send a copy of their order to the court of appeals, and the court of appeals will issue its mandate to the trial court to act in accordance with the court of appeals opinion.”

Marty Lowy, judge of the 101st District Court who also intervened in the case, agrees with Larsen.

“I don’t believe the decision is final until a mandate issues from the Texarkana Court of Appeals,” Lowy says.

— John Council

Appellate lawyer to coach basketball at Paul Quinn College

Two weeks ago, Rowlett appellate solo Chad Baruch (pictured) landed a job that invariably will lead to comparisons to a late-1970s TV drama called “The White Shadow,” a show about a white former NBA player who coaches a basketball team at a predominantly black inner-city high school. At least it will for those who are old enough to remember the 70s. That’s because Baruch, who is also a white guy, is now the head basketball coach of Paul Quinn College, a small, historically black college south of downtown Dallas.

Baruch says he left a job at a private Jewish school a year ago where he was basketball coach, and mutual acquaintances who are attorneys put him in contact with fellow lawyer and Paul Quinn President Michael Sorrell. Sorrell has been getting positive press in recent years for improving the once-struggling school by raising academic standards, hiring professors and even going so far as turning the school's unused football field into a vibrant vegetable garden.

Baruch says he likes what’s going on at Paul Quinn and its president.

“The first thing I liked about him he was a former college basketball player. He played at Oberlin [College], and he understands the small college athletic balance,” says Baruch.

Sorrells did not immediately return a call for comment.

Baruch says he met his team recently on the last day of class. All of his players are much too young to get the “White Shadow” references, he says.

“These kids weren't alive when Clinton was president,” Baruch says.

— John Council

Newsmakers: Haynes and Boone associate serves as DAABA’s president-elect

Sakina Rasheed (pictured), an associate at Haynes and Boone in Dallas, is the president-elect of the approximately 300-member Dallas Asian American Bar Association.

Rasheed says she has been an active member of DAABA since 2009 and has served as the co-chairwoman of its programs, services and awards night committees. She says she has been a member of DAABA’s board of directors since 2012.

At Haynes and Boone, Rasheed is a member of the finance practice group. She says she joined the firm in 2007 and focuses her practice on the representation of financial institutions and borrowers in commercial loan transactions.

Rasheed received her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 2003.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

Newsmakers: Winstead hires associate in Dallas office

On May 28, Elizabeth A. Franko (pictured) joined Winstead as an associate with the firm’s Dallas office.

At Winstead, she is a member of the real estate development and investments practice group, Franko says. She says that before joining Winstead, she was an associate at the Dallas office of Fulbright & Jaworski, now known as Norton Rose Fulbright.

Franko earned her J.D. from Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law in 2009.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

Newsmakers: Elizabeth Schartz named secretary of Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas board

Elizabeth Schartz (pictured), a partner in Thompson & Knight in Dallas, has become secretary of the board of directors for the Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas.

Schartz says she has served as an at-large member of the board since 2008 but was not a Girl Scout and does not have a daughter.

“My knowledge of Girl Scouts before I got involved in this was as a consumer of their cookies,” she says.

Schartz says she had wanted to find some type of civic involvement and was asked to serve on the board for the Girl Scouts organization.

“It’s a super organization,” she says.

Schartz, chairwoman of Thompson & Knight’s employment and labor practice group, says she joined the firm in 1989 after serving as a law clerk for then-10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge James K. Logan. She received her J.D. in 1988 from the University of Kansas School of Law.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

Newsmakers: Skadden promotes Houston attorney to counsel

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom has promoted Eric C. Otness (pictured), a member of the firm’s corporate section in Houston, to counsel, effective June 1.

Otness says he joined Skadden as an associate in September 2002 after receiving his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law.

He says his practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions as well as on corporate and securities law matters.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

Newsmakers: Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease adds two attorneys in Houston

Two attorneys recently joined Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease in the firm’s Houston office, which opened in 2009.

John J. Sparacino (pictured), who has 20 years of experience in bankruptcy law, joined Vorys as a partner in the finance, energy and real estate group. He previously was a partner in Andrews Kurth in Houston.

Sparacino says his practice focuses on bankruptcy-related matters, including litigation, receiverships and out-of-court restructurings.

He received his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Houston Law Center in 1990.

Randell J. Gartin (pictured) has joined Vorys as of counsel in the firm’s tax and probate group. He advises clients on international and federal tax matters.

Before joining Vorys, he was an associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manages in Dallas, Gartin says.

Gartin received his J.D. cum laude from Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law in 2001 and received a LL.M. with distinction in taxation from Georgetown University Law Center in 2005.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

Newsmakers: Dallas judge receives certification from The National Judicial College

Judge Jim Jordan of the 160th District Court in Dallas has received a Certificate in Judicial Development for general jurisdiction trial skills from The National Judicial College (NJC) in Reno, Nev.

“I’ve take courses since 2007,” says Jordan (pictured).

He says he also has been accepted in a program for a master’s degree in judicial studies that is a collaboration between NJC, the University of Nevada, Reno, and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.

Jordan says he won election to the 160th District Court in 2006 and began serving on Jan. 1, 2007. Although it is a general jurisdiction court, Jordan says he generally receives civil cases.

In 1986, then-Gov. Mark White appointed him to the 44th District Court for an unexpired term, Jordan says.

Jordan is a 1977 graduate of Texas Tech University School of Law.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.

Newsmakers: San Antonio-based firm has new name, new principal heading Dallas office

Polunsky & Beitel has changed its name to Polunsky Beitel & Green and has promoted financial services attorney Marty Green, head of the firm’s Dallas office, to a principal.

Green (pictured) says he has directed the firm’s Dallas operations since 2011, when he joined Polunsky, a residential mortgage law firm. He says the name change recognizes the presence the firm has established in the Dallas-Fort Worth market under his leadership.

“It gives us an increased presence here in the Metroplex,” he says.

After graduating from the University of Texas School of Law in 1988, he joined Thompson & Knight in Dallas, Green says. He says he subsequently served as executive vice president and general counsel of Dallas’ CTX Mortgage Co., which he joined in 1999.

Immediately before joining Polunsky, Green was a special counsel at Baker Botts in Dallas, he says.

Green says that Polunsky also recently moved its offices in San Antonio to the Eilan at 17806 IH 10 West, Suite 450. The firm had been in the same office space for almost 30 years, he says. Its telephone number in San Antonio is 210-349-4488.

— Mary Alice Robbins

Robbins is an Austin-based freelance writer and a former Texas Lawyer senior reporter.