Lions Bios – Page 4 – Lions Of The Texas bar

Charles Parker: Changing the Definition of Success

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_4″ last=”no” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ class=”” id=””][fusion_imageframe lightbox=”no” lightbox_image=”” style_type=”none” hover_type=”none” bordercolor=”” bordersize=”0px” borderradius=”0″ stylecolor=”” align=”none” link=”” linktarget=”_self” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”down” animation_speed=”0.1″ hide_on_mobile=”no” class=”” id=””] [/fusion_imageframe][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”3_4″ last=”yes” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ class=”” id=””][fusion_text]By Patricia Baldwin

(Nov. 2) – As Charles Parker enters his fifth decade of practicing trial law, he is focused on a trio of priorities that have little to do with traditional measures of success.

First, the partner at Yetter Coleman in Houston said it is important to him to take cases that are “the right thing to do.”

He also is concerned about attacks on the jury trial system. “I have a real belief in the jury system. It works very well,” Parker added.

And, he is determined to mentor fledgling lawyers at the litigation boutique he joined in late 2011 after nearly eight years at Locke Lord. “Law school is a start – a preliminary start,” he noted.

At 67, Parker is a self-described “old school trial lawyer” who hasn’t strayed far from his roots. He’s tried scores of cases to juries across Texas.

He grew up – and continues to live – within five miles of downtown Houston. He attended the University of Texas for his undergraduate degree, but returned home to attend the University of Houston Law Center, where he received his doctor of jurisprudence in 1974.
Like many of his litigation contemporaries, he started his career representing doctors and hospitals in medical malpractice cases. He has defended other professionals, and he has taken the lead in mass tort actions. He has worked for large firms and founded his own firm.

As society and the law became more complicated, so did Parker’s practice, leading to his specialty of complex business litigation. Much of his practice focuses on securities litigation. He’s represented individuals and businesses in regulatory and enforcement matters brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Companies frequently hire Parker to conduct independent internal investigations when the SEC or the U.S. Department of Justice announce they have opened a probe into possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or other state or federal securities laws.

In addition, Parker has represented several clients involved in potential breaches of fiduciary duty involving corporations and corporate executives.

He served as lead counsel for a group of limited partners suing the general partner for putting its interests ahead of the others when the general partner negotiated a mortgage restructuring involving an office building. Parker took the allegations that the general partner breached his fiduciary duties to trial and the jury awarded his clients $60 million.

Parker spent a decade as one of the lead lawyers in the diet drug Fen-Phen litigation against manufacturer Wyeth. A federal judge appointed him as the National Class Counsel for the Multi-District Litigation. The class action settlement ultimately resulted in about $5 billion in payouts.

“I love investigation, solving the puzzle, developing story themes to win,” he said. “My biggest satisfaction is that I’m almost always client based, and I have a strong client relationship.”

Often, Parker said, “My clients want their stories told.”

For example, Parker represented the parents of an 18-year-old who died in a 2004 auto accident. An initial DPS investigation concluded the youth was speeding, lost control of his vehicle and caused the accident that killed three people.

The youth’s grieving parents could not believe the report and called upon Parker to help vindicate their son.

He did just that.

Parker’s additional investigation revealed that the brakes had malfunctioned on the teen’s vehicle – brakes that had been replaced 10 days before the accident. The DPS reopened the case and came to the same conclusion.

A lawsuit against the defendant brake company settled before trial for an excess of $3 million. Parker’s clients gave the money they received to charity.

With a mantra of doing the “doing the right thing,” Parker is committed to mentoring young Yetter Coleman attorneys. He said he believes law associates at large firms have become too focused on billable hours, losing opportunities just to observe trials in action.

His best advice to up-and-coming attorneys?

“Your reputation will be your calling card for the rest of your life.”[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Jim Cowles: Law Practice has Changed but Not for the Good – Updated

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_4″ last=”no” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” hover_type=”none” link=”” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_imageframe lightbox=”no” lightbox_image=”” style_type=”none” hover_type=”none” bordercolor=”” bordersize=”0px” borderradius=”0″ stylecolor=”” align=”none” link=”” linktarget=”_self” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”down” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” hide_on_mobile=”no” class=”” id=””] [/fusion_imageframe][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”3_4″ last=”yes” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” hover_type=”none” link=”” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_text]By Mark Curriden

(Dec. 22) – On Jim Cowles’ first day in high school, his dad walked into his bedroom and announced it was time for the 14-year-old to decide what he was going to do for a living.

“Sir, I want to be a lawyer,” Cowles responded.

Sixty-eight years later, he says he hasn’t regretted the decision even for one day. He’s tried nearly 600 cases to a jury verdict, including a dozen trials while he was still in law school.

“I couldn’t wait,” he says. “I would go down to Justice Court, which was a notch above small claims court and represent folks in auto accident cases and other small disputes.”

At age 82, Cowles still loves being a lawyer, but he admits the role of lawyers is not the same as when he started.

“The legal profession has changed dramatically and the changes are not for the good,” he says. “Today, you cannot be sure that opposing lawyer’s word is good as gold.

Litigation today is “a battle of motions and discovery and so much paper and it goes on and on at an enormous cost to the client,” he says.

Cowles first trial in 1960 was an auto accident case in Georgetown, Texas, against a seasoned lawyer. A named partner sat behind Cowles for the entire two-day trial. The jury awarded Cowles’ client a few thousand dollars, which was a big victory.

“On the 30 minute drive back to the office, the partner told me all the things I did wrong in the trial,” he says. “By the time I got back to Austin, I was pretty sure I had actually lost the trial.”

After a short stint in the corporate legal department at Texas Pacific Railroad, Cowles joined a Dallas firm where he tried 18 trials his first year and 22 trials his second year. He won all 40.

“Those were the days before there was this thing called a billable hour,” he says. “We would just sit down at the end of a case and figure out how many days we had work on a case and send the client a bill that we both believed was reasonable.”

Cowles was hired to defend 35 lawyers and four state district court judges in Wichita Falls who had been sued by the region’s former district attorney. The lawyers and judges served on the Texas disciplinary board that had disbarred the prosecutor.

A federal judge handling the lawsuit dismissed the case and the plaintiff’s lawyers appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

“I had not been paid by the 35 lawyers, but I wrote to them asking them to cover my expenses for traveling to New Orleans for oral arguments,” he says.

A few days later, one of Cowles’ clients wrote back.

“Jim – We agree that you should not be required to pay for your travel to New Orleans. So, we have agreed to have a horse ready for you every 40 miles all the way to New Orleans.”

The plaintiff dismissed the case a week prior to oral arguments.

Cowles is also known for his creativity in court and his efforts to challenge traditional thinking. Five decades ago, Cowles was one of the first lawyers in the U.S. to try to use science to demonstrate the flaws in eyewitness testimony.

In 1966, Gerald Don Dearing hired Cowles to defend him in a car crash case. The family of Richard Nutter sued Dearing, claiming he was at fault in the head-on collision.

The plaintiffs claimed that Nutter was driving his Ford west on Forrest Lane in Dallas about 10 p.m. and that Dearing was traveling east in a Chevrolet when the crash occurred. The evidence showed that the car traveling east was responsible.

The key eyewitness in the trial testified that he saw the Chevrolet driven by Dearing eastbound on the four-lane road. Five police officers sided with Nutter, saying Dearing was eastbound and crossed into on-coming traffic. Dearing suffered serious head injuries from the crash and was hospitalized for 57 days. He had no recollection about whether he was driving east or west.

Facing an overwhelming amount of evidence, Cowles hired a former inspector with the Texas Department of Safety. Using police photographs from the scene of the crash and retracing the paths of the two car drivers that night, the inspector testified that using basic common sense led him to conclude that Dearing could not have been driving east.

The jury ruled unanimously for Dearing. About a year later, the Texas Supreme Court reversed, saying that juries should not use customized evidence based on habits of parties to override the testimony of eyewitnesses.

In 1984, Cowles put his extraordinary courtroom skills on display when he cross-examined a famous doctor expert for the plaintiffs in an asbestosis trial in federal court in Marshall.

The federal judge, Robert Parker, publicly praised Cowles by describing Cowles’ questioning of the expert as “a $600,000 cross-examination.”

When Cowles arrived back at the hotel conference room where all the defense lawyers were working, he was greeted with a standing ovation.

Cowles has always been fast on his feet in court.

In 1992, he represented a physician in a lawsuit brought by the parents of a baby who was born with brain damage at Baylor Medical Center. The judge hearing the case actually struck all of Cowles’ legal defenses before the trial started due to alleged discovery violations.

Despite the severe limitations that were designed to almost guarantee a plaintiff’s victory, Cowles successfully used cross-examination of the other side’s witnesses to prove his case.

The jury returned with an award of $0 against Cowles’ client.

In 1999, Cowles was involved in a trial in which a Fort Worth doctor surgically removed the patient’s wrong lung and left the cancer in the remaining lung.

During the cross-examination of a medical expert, Cowles used a cardboard toilet paper roll to demonstrate the manner in which a bronchial tube could be closed down by a tumor. He showed how the tube could easily be squeezed and closed off, shutting down airflow.

That night, janitors cleaning the courtroom thought the tube was trash. When told of the tube’s disappearance, five jurors brought Cowles toilet paper rolls to court the next morning.

“The jury ruled for my client and I had the judge and the jurors sign the roll, which I still have today,” he says.

Looking back on his 55-year career, Cowles says he still loves the practice of law.

“I did what I told my dad I would do,” he says.

https://youtu.be/vXyWfcinqd4[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Charles Matthews: The Legal Architect

(Nov. 2) – Charles Matthews went to bed the night of March 23, 1989 looking forward to a relaxing Easter holiday weekend.

By the time the Exxon associate general counsel awoke the next morning on Good Friday, his world had been forever changed. About 3,160 miles away, an Exxon oil tanker called the Valdez crashed into Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound at 12:04 a.m. Alaska time or 3:04 a.m. Houston time.

“I got an urgent call telling me to turn on the TV right away. We’ve had a bad accident,” Matthews says. “The general counsel said, ‘I need you on a flight to Alaska as fast as possible.’ ”

Over the two decades that followed, Matthews successfully guided Exxon through one of the most complex and expensive litigations in U.S. history. While Matthews will forever be linked to the Valdez oil spill cases, he is widely viewed as one of the most influential corporate general counsel in history.

“Charles was the consummate general counsel – extremely well respected by senior management, his law department and the outside counsel community,” says current Exxon Mobil General Counsel Jack Balagia. “He has all the qualities of a great lawyer: [he’s] intellectually strong, appropriately tough with a great sense of humor; loyal to his friends and colleagues and devoted to his family.”

Matthews was the first in his family to go to college. He received his bachelor’s degree at the University of Texas and then obtained a law degree in 1970 from the University of Houston.

Humble Oil hired him in 1971 to work in its litigation practice section. Two years later, the company changed its name to Exxon and Matthews was busier than ever.

“We never ran out of slip and fall cases,” he says. “I was able to get a lot of trial experience.”

Matthews’ first big case came in the mid-1970s when the Federal Trade Commission sued all the oil companies on antitrust grounds. The litigation and subsequent settlement discussions lasted for years. The document discovery in the case was massive.

“We negotiated a dismissal of the cases that concluded with us paying no money and we didn’t have to change any operations,” he says.

During the same time period, Exxon’s service stations joined together in a class action against the Irving-based corporation seeking the ability to purchase fuel from any oil supplier, including Exxon’s competitors, while still selling it retail under the Exxon flag. The decade-long litigation ended with a consent decree in which Exxon was successful in all of its goals.

Exxon made Matthews its general counsel for U.S. operations in 1992 and its global GC in 1995.

In 1998, Exxon officials took the bold risk of attempting to merge with one of its top competitors, Mobil Oil, in a deal valued at $83 billion.

“Charles was the legal architect of the largest industrial merger in America at the time, reuniting the two largest components of the old Standard Oil Trust, and creating what is by many measures the largest publicly traded oil company in the world and one of the largest corporations in the world,” Balagia says.

“That job required a hugely coordinated effort, much advocacy, production and review of tens of thousands of boxes of documents, preparation of dozens of witnesses, divestment of assets and 18 months of regulatory approvals from governments around the world,” he says.

Matthews became the GC of the newly combined corporate legal department with 250 lawyers in the U.S. and 200 lawyers outside the U.S. Exxon Mobil paid thousands of lawyers at hundreds of outside law firms to handle various litigation, regulatory, tax and corporate transactional matters.

As Matthews’ public profile grew, public service groups came calling. He served as a director for the National Center for State Courts, Children’s Hospital and the Center for American and International Law. The Southwestern Region of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America made him a national trustee and he was the first corporate GC to serve on the board of directors of the Texas Access to Justice Commission, which is the organization that provides funding for legal services for the poor in the state.

Despite all of his accomplishments, Matthews recognizes that he will forever be linked to his work on the Valdez litigation.

“Nobody knew more facts about the Valdez case than I did,” Matthews says. “The Valdez case was a big chunk of my career. The litigation continued right up until I retired.”

Matthews coordinated all of Exxon’s litigation. He led the oil company’s efforts to settle civil and criminal cases brought by state and federal governments. The company spent about $3.5 billion in clean up costs.

When an Alaska jury in 1994 ordered Exxon to pay fishermen and Alaska natives $5 billion in punitive damages, Matthews was determined to fight on principle.

“Charles was the legal architect of Exxon’s litigation strategy in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez disaster in Prince William Sound,” Balagia says. “He was, in fact, the first Exxon lawyer to arrive on the scene two days after the accident, and he managed the litigation from that day forward, continuing to guide activity even after becoming general counsel.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit cut the damage award in half in 2006. In 2008, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that punitive damages could not be larger than the compensatory damages for actual losses, which calculated to $507.5 million to be divided among the 33,000 plaintiffs.

“We wanted to make new law in limiting punitive damages,” Matthews says. “It was a seminal case and it was very rewarding.”

Matthews retired from Exxon Mobil in 2010. He serves on the corporate boards of Trinity Industries and Frost Bank. He has received scores of awards and honors, including the General Counsel Forum’s Robert Dedman Award for Ethics and Law and the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

“Charlie loves the law,” says Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. “He has been a great ambassador for the legal profession.”[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Mike Lynn is ‘Simply One of the Best Trial Lawyers’ – Updated

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_4″ last=”no” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” hover_type=”none” link=”” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_imageframe lightbox=”no” lightbox_image=”” style_type=”none” hover_type=”none” bordercolor=”” bordersize=”0px” borderradius=”0″ stylecolor=”” align=”none” link=”” linktarget=”_self” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”down” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” hide_on_mobile=”no” class=”” id=””] [/fusion_imageframe][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”3_4″ last=”yes” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” hover_type=”none” link=”” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_text]By Patricia Baldwin

(Dec. 22) – When Mike Lynn turned 40, he seemingly had everything going his way. He was a partner in the litigation section at Akin Gump, a prestigious law firm that was home to Robert Strauss, Vernon Jordan, Jack Hauer and Alan Feld.

Despite the success, Lynn told his mentor, Jim Coleman, that he wanted to be in court more often and that he was growing tired of Big Law. Coleman suggested he quit and start his own law firm.

“That’s a bit drastic, don’t you think?” Lynn responded.

Even so, he decided to take the enormous risk. More than two and a half decades later, Lynn has one of the most successful litigation boutiques in Texas. The firm has nearly 30 lawyers and has been hired by some of the largest corporations on earth to handle their trial work, including ExxonMobil, Alcatel, Visa and Southwest Airlines.

During the past two years, Lynn and his team scored a $536 million courtroom victory for pipeline giant Energy Transfer Partners and a $146 million win in West Texas for legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens. In between those two trials, he hiked the Appalachian Trail.

“Not bad for a 66-year-old,” he says introspectively.

Lynn said he learned by example to “think out of the box.” His late mother, once Arlington’s mayor pro tem, helped integrate schools and parks. His father, a prolific inventor at Bell Helicopter, is credited with the research and engineering for the world’s fastest helicopter.

Colleagues, however, contend the Lynn Pinker Cox Hurst founder is a fierce competitor who doesn’t even see the box.

The truth is, the SMU Dedman School of Law graduate’s entire career reflects creative risk-taking. It started 45 years ago at the University of Virginia when he met Barbara Golden, who is better known today in the legal profession as U.S. District Court Chief Judge Barbara Lynn.

He was a junior and she was a freshman. In fact, she was in the first freshman class of women admitted to the historic college and she wanted to join the Jefferson Literary and Debate Society, a 190-year-old organization that is considered one of the oldest and most prestigious clubs at the University of Virginia.

Woodrow Wilson and Edgar Allan Poe were members. No women had ever been.

When Golden applied, Jeff Society leaders – led by southern conservative male leaders – rejected her petition. But Lynn had a plan.

“One weekend in February, when the anti-women cabal had left for New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras and I knew I had the votes with them gone, I called for a vote [of the remaining members] to change the bylaws to admit women,” says Lynn, who was the vice president of the Jeff Society at the time.

Golden was elected as a member by a single vote, according to UVA officials.

“That no doubt cemented our relationship,” Lynn says. “There’s a plaque on the wall at UVA celebrating Barb as the Jeff Society’s first woman member. No mention of me, though. I guess it got me married, so that is reward enough.”

Those who have known the Lynns for decades say they are a force to behold.

“Barb and Mike are two of the smartest, most talented and ambitious lawyers I have ever met,” says Patrick Higginbotham, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, who has known the couple since they were in law school together at Southern Methodist University in 1974.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that Barbara is one of the five best federal judges in the country and should be on the president’s short list for the Fifth Circuit or the Supreme Court,” Judge Higginbotham says. “And Mike is simply one of the best trial lawyers in the country.”

After law school, Lynn became an associate at Akin Gump. After three years on the job, he grew frustrated that he wasn’t trying more cases in court. Akin Gump partner Jack Hauer advised him to leave the firm to join the Dallas County District Attorneys Office, where he would get more trial experience.

Henry Wade, however, refused to hire Lynn because he had no trial experience.

“When I told Jack that Mr. Wade refused to hire me, he ordered me to go sit outside Mr. Wade’s office until he hired me,” Lynn says. “I reported to Mr. Wade’s office every day at 8 a.m. and sat there until 5 p.m. for two weeks.”

Finally, one of Wade’s assistants, Doug Mulder, “took pity” on Lynn and hired him to prosecute cases. The experience was invaluable, as Mike Lynn tried more than 50 cases to a verdict. He has now handled more than 100 jury trials.

Lynn returned to Akin Gump, where he was elected partner in 1982. The very next year, Barbara Lynn made partner at Carrington Coleman.

Then came the conversation Lynn had with Jim Coleman in 1993, leading Lynn to leave the security and comfort of the high-powered and extremely influential national law firm to start his own small litigation-focused law firm.

“A lot of people said I was crazy,” he says. “It was certainly a scary decision to go out on my own.”

Lynn says that he’s “never been particularly worried about failing.

“I tell young lawyers I don’t like working with them until they’ve lost several cases,” he says. “That’s the only way you learn.”

Still, Lynn’s “W” column is lengthy.

In 1998, Visa International hired Lynn when an Internet credit card processing company charged that a Visa executive had anonymously posted hundreds of critical messages on Yahoo’s investment website. The firm sought $800 million in actual damages and $1 billion in punitive damages.

Lynn’s defense was “So what?” The jury agreed that the postings had no material impact on the market.

In 2000, his representation of Alcatel “helped rebuild the Dallas courtroom” with multi-media support for defending what some say was the largest trade secret settlement agreement ever reached in a Dallas County court case.

Lynn is currently representing Chilean-based Inppamet in a $60 million international business dispute against RSR Corporation, a Dallas-based lead smelter. The case became newsworthy when Lynn accused his opposing counsel, Bickel & Brewer, of improperly hiring a former executive of Inppamet in an effort to gain insider, privileged information. The case is still pending.

“Mike is fierce and unpredictable,” says Jeff Tillotson, a former long-time law partner of Lynn. “Mike loves to find the weakness in the other side’s case and then exploit that weakness completely.

“Despite his toughness and aggressiveness in court, Mike is the most loyal and kind-hearted man I know,” says Tillotson. “He’s an extraordinarily gentle and sentimental father and he treats everyone who works at the firm as if he is personally responsible for them.”

In 2014, Lynn scored one of the largest judgment in a complex commercial dispute when he convinced a North Texas jury that his client, Energy Transfer Partners, had been victimized by competitor Enterprise Partners for improperly cutting them out of a business partnership.

During a month-long trial, Lynn convinced the jury to rule that there is a business version of common law marriage. The result: a $535 million decision. The case is on appeal.

In 2015, Lynn fulfilled a 40-year dream by hiking for three months on the challenging Appalachian Trail. The adventure was his way of “pushing back against getting old.” Because of his two knee replacements, he adopted the trail name of “Tin Man.”

He recorded his “transformational” adventure in a blog for his family and was surprised when views surpassed 15,000. In a final posting, he wrote about his lessons, which could have been penned by his namesake Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz”

“I learned again that giving up was mental and when you have to climb,

you inevitably climb and finish the journey,” he says.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Dick DeGuerin: ‘Every Case is a Big Case to the Client’

(Oct. 30) – As one of Texas’ top criminal defense lawyers, Houston’s Dick DeGuerin has defended the high and mighty as well as the low and friendless.

He has successfully represented elected officials accused of violating Texas ethics laws, a multimillionaire who admitted dismembering his neighbor and an impoverished, abused woman who tossed six of her children in Buffalo Bayou.

“Through the years you have to remember that every case is big to the client,” DeGuerin says. “Some have more notoriety and attention than others but all of them are important to the client.”

Asked if he ever gets tired of having controversial clients, the 74-year-old courtroom contender emits a hearty laugh.

“Not at all,” he says. “I’ve got one that’s very, very controversial right now and that’s the Bob Durst case. He’s someone that the public generally thinks is a weirdo and a serial killer. But it’s just not the truth.”

In 2003, DeGuerin used a theory of self-defense to win an unlikely acquittal in Durst’s grisly killing of a Galveston man whose body parts were discovered in the bay.

“The case in Galveston was one in which the public viewed him as guilty and as a case that couldn’t be won,” DeGuerin says. “When I looked at it, it was imminently try-able because it was actually at its base a pretty simple case. It was a struggle over a gun that went off. You just had to remove all the distractions of the case and look at what happened that caused the death.”

Durst again is a client, having been arrested in March in New Orleans in connection with the 2000 murder of a female friend in Los Angeles. The arrest coincided with the final episode of a six-part HBO documentary that raised questions about the friend’s murder as well as the 1982 disappearance of Durst’s first wife.

DeGuerin hardly seemed destined for headline-grabbing crime cases early in his career. After graduating from the University of Texas law school, he had gained trial experience prosecuting criminals in Harris County and defending insurance cases at a big Houston firm.

The young litigator’s opportunity came in 1970 when he volunteered to help defend a prominent local criminal defense lawyer who had been charged with illegal possession and sale of machine guns. The lead lawyer on the case was none other than Percy Foreman, a certified legal legend who had represented James Earl Ray in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and claimed to have saved hundreds from Death Row.

Foreman was impressed enough that he offered DeGuerin a job. His law firm boss, Jack Binion, told DeGuerin he would be a damn fool if he didn’t seize the opportunity.

“The real start of my career was with Percy Foreman,” says DeGuerin. “He had the faith in me to put me out front. He gave me the big cases.”

The first big one was defending Foreman, who had been charged with DWI. The next came when Foreman put his protégé in charge of defending a woman accused of involvement in the mysterious murder of Dr. John Hill following the death of his wife, a case made famous in Thomas Thompson’s “Blood and Money.”

“He just turned it over to me,” said DeGuerin of the Lilla Paulus case. “He trusted me with his reputation, which was a big deal.”

Although both Foreman and Paulus were convicted, DeGuerin learned the value of thorough preparation and courage to take on a difficult task. Foreman later described DeGuerin as having “the guts of an Army mule,” a backhanded compliment that DeGuerin still relishes.

“The harder you work the more likely you are to prevail. I learned that early on,” DeGuerin says.

DeGuerin left Foreman & DeGuerin in 1982 with Lewis Dickson and formed DeGuerin & Dickson. The firm now has five lawyers and is known as DeGuerin Dickson Hennessy & Ward.

When newly elected U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was indicted in 1993 for official misconduct and records tampering, she turned to DeGuerin.

“Kay Bailey Hutchison trusted me with her life and future,” says DeGuerin. “We fought at every juncture in that case and just thoroughly trounced the effort by the D.A. in Travis County to torpedo her career.”

He lost a 2010 money laundering case that the Travis County district attorney had brought against Tom DeLay, who was forced to resign as majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. The conviction was later reversed on appeal.

“I’ve been fortunate to have had big cases that drew a lot of attention,” says DeGuerin.

In 1986 he negotiated a plea bargain for Juana Leija, who received a probated sentence in the drowning deaths of two of her children. DeGuerin alleged that years of abuse by Leija’s husband had literally driven the exhausted mother crazy. In a 2001 interview with the Houston Chronicle at DeGuerin’s law office, Leija talked about how she had been able to forgive herself and rebuild her life.

Not surprisingly, DeGuerin has no plans to retire. He just passed the medical exam that allows him to continue flying and relishes horseback riding and hunting.

“I think it’s important for lawyers to have a number of different interests that aren’t necessarily all focused on the law,” he says. “I try to keep in physical condition. A trial is a very physical endeavor that requires good health and good physical condition.”[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Judge Patrick Higginbotham: The Lion of the Fifth

(Oct. 30) – Patrick E. Higginbotham was born in 1938 in rural Alabama. His father was a dairy farmer who struggled to make ends meet. As a kid, young Pat sold collard greens from the back of the truck to earn extra cash.

When he was 12, the town built a tennis court, which captured Higginbotham’s attention. He traded his hunting knife for a tennis racket and moved into the YMCA when he was 14 to focus on playing tennis. He was good, earning a scholarship at the University of Alabama from its athletic director, legendary football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.

“Pat grew up poor and knows what it means to have a tough upbringing,” says long-time friend Jim Coleman, a partner at Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal in Dallas. “That experience is part of his character and made him the man and father and judge he is today.”

Higginbotham finished college and law school in just five years. At age 22, he joined the U.S. Air Force JAG Corps, where he tried his first case – a criminal theft matter.

Following the military, he moved to Dallas to join the city’s oldest law firm at the time – Coke & Coke, where he specialized in antitrust litigation.

“I marveled that people would pay me to have so much fun,” Higginbotham says. “The practice of law was a lot different back then. We didn’t keep timesheets until 1966 because no one ever thought about billing by the hour. A partner leaving his or her law firm for another law firm over money was simply unheard of.”

phiggenbotham1P

In 1975, President Ford nominated Higginbotham to the U.S. District Court in Dallas, making him the youngest federal judge in the country at the time. He joined the Fifth Circuit in the first wave of Reagan appointees in 1982 and from that position has had enormous influence on that Court, the profession, and those he mentors and teaches.

Higginbotham has authored hundreds of opinions that now shaped fundamental aspects of American law.

In the area of securities law, his LTV opinion from the 1970s essentially wrote the law of “fraud on the market.” Nearly 40 years later, his BP opinion from this year refines and distills today’s major causation theories.

Other landmark opinions address the application of the Voting Rights Act to judicial elections, the continuing and important role of the substantive due process clause in modern economic regulation, and the role of race in admissions at the University of Texas.

Higginbotham has served the bar in roles as diverse as chairman of the Center for American and International Law, which is a globally-respected provider of continuing legal education; chairman of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules by appointment of Chief Justice William Rehnquist; and chairman of the American Inns of Court Foundation.

His former clerks include the presidents of Princeton University and Unisys Corporation, as well as professors at many major law schools and partners at leading firms. He has taught dozens of law school courses and has been a major voice in the academic and professional literature on the phenomenon of the “vanishing jury trial” in civil cases.

When he speaks in public, Higginbotham displays a sparkling combination of intellect and trial experience, capable of moving instantly from a difficult constitutional issue to a funny story about his youth or a memorable case. His distinctive writing style, instantly recognizable to experienced attorneys in federal practice, blends clever word choice and sentence structure to create succinct, powerful summaries of his legal analysis.

Fifth Circuit Chief Judge Carl Stewart, in an interview, said that’s because there is no judge who is more influential on the appeals court than Higginbotham.

“He has so much experience in so many different subject matters that there’s hardly a case that ever comes before us that he’s not already faced,” Stewart says. “He brings so much perspective and he’s a scholarly student of the law. He knows it like the back of his own hand.”

Now in his late 70s, Judge Higginbotham continues to handle a full caseload. His sprawling intellectual and personal legacy touches virtually every area of law handled by the federal courts. One of the most respected federal judges in the nation, he is truly a lion of the Texas Bar.

David Coale is a partner at Lynn Tillotson in Dallas where he specializes in appellate law. He clerked for Judge Higginbotham.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

‘Uncle Darrell’ Jordan: Senior Statesman and ‘Damn Good Lawyer’ – Updated

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_4″ last=”no” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” hover_type=”none” link=”” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_imageframe lightbox=”no” lightbox_image=”” style_type=”none” hover_type=”none” bordercolor=”” bordersize=”0px” borderradius=”0″ stylecolor=”” align=”none” link=”” linktarget=”_self” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”down” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” hide_on_mobile=”no” class=”” id=””] [/fusion_imageframe][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”3_4″ last=”yes” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” hover_type=”none” link=”” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_text]By Patricia Baldwin

Jan. 9, 2017 – Darrell Jordan graduated from the University of Texas and received his LL.B. degree from Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. He got his street smarts as a lawyer, however, from the so-called Henry Wade University – the moniker assistant prosecutors once gave the workplace of the long-serving, late Dallas District Attorney.

“It’s important work,” Jordan said of the D.A.’s office, where he not only launched his legal career, but also discovered the gratification of public service.

Service to others is reflected in the Diamond McCarthy partner’s receipt in 2015 of the Texas Bar Foundation’s Outstanding 50 Year Lawyer Award. He has collected numerous such honors – Texas Appleseed’s Good Apple Award, SMU Dedman School of Law’s Distinquished Alumni Award, Dallas Bar Association’s Justinian Award and Texas Equal Access to Justice Commission’s Stars of Justice Award – and served in many non-profit leadership roles, but he finds most satisfying the human results that occur when he rolls up his sleeves.

At 77, Jordan is widely viewed in Dallas and across Texas as a senior statesman. He used his position as head of litigation at Hughes & Luce in the 1980s to support candidates for judicial seats. While Jordan considers himself an old fashion Barry Goldwater Republican, he openly campaigned for some Democrats. For example, he led election efforts for Dallas lawyer Ron White to be one of the first African-American judges elected countywide.

Jordan ran for Dallas mayor, but lost narrowly to Ron Kirk, who was the first African-American mayor in the city. Kirk and Jordan became friends and have supported each other’s civic efforts.

“Darrell is not only a damn good lawyer, he’s a friend and I appreciated his counsel while I was mayor,” Kirk said. “Darrell has done far more than his fair share for the community and for the legal profession.”

Jordan’s commitment to public service was on full display when he led the defense of the state’s use of legal trust fund interest to help pay for legal services for the poor.

In March 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ended a nine-year legal battle by ruling in favor of the Interest on Lawyer’s Trust Accounts (IOLTA) Program. Lawyers familiar with the case say Jordan donated thousands of billable hours and tens-of-thousands of dollars out of his own pocket toward the IOLTA effort, which has benefited tens-of-thousands of low-income Texans who needed legal representation.

As part of his efforts, he achieved a legal objective that few lawyers – even most great trial lawyers – accomplish: he briefed and presented oral arguments to the Supreme Court.

“There’s no question,” Jordan said. “IOLTA began the process of having influential people – legislators, judges, others – understand the importance of funding legal services for the poor.”

Under the IOLTA program, the interests collected from the various trust accounts from lawyers across the state that temporarily hold payments by clients is combined by the banks and given a special, higher interest rate. That money is then paid to the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, which funds various legal aid projects across the state. A 2014 survey by the University of North Texas estimated that Texas lawyers annually provide the equivalent of $500 million of free or indirect services to the poor.

Jordan finds litigation “intellectually stimulating.” That doesn’t mean stuffy.

His “most fun case” grabbed media headlines as a “cold war.”

Jordan and colleagues at Hughes & Luce, where he spent 24 years, represented Haagen-Dazs when Baskin-Robbins sued the Pillsbury Co. subsidiary for trademark infringement.

In fact, Baskin-Robbins had trademarked the name Pralines ‘N Cream when Haagen-Dazs introduced Pralines & Cream.

“You have to police your trademark,” Jordan explained. He sent paralegals around the country to buy Pralines ‘N Cream from many other ice cream stores.

Haagen-Dazs prevailed, although Jordan noted, “We all gained 10 pounds.”

Jordan’s client list is envied by many in the legal profession. He represented Citibank in multiple litigation matters, including a class action regarding the business’s lending practices. The city of Arlington hired him to lead an investigation into allegations of corruption within its police department and municipal court system. He successfully defended a Dallas TV reporter who was sued by a pair of Dallas Cowboys football players.

A huge proponent of the American jury system, Jordan said he fears that the right to trial by jury is slowly eroding. He points to recent data published by The Texas Lawbook showing that the number of civil jury trials in Texas has plummeted from 3,600 in 1996 to only 1,200 last year.

“The ability to have our civil disputes decided by our peers is a fundamental right in our Constitution,” he said. “It is a cherished right that should be vigorously preserved.”

Jordan’s penchant for mentoring young lawyers once earned him the nickname of “Uncle Darrell.” The humorous tag stuck.

“Everyone knows and gets along with Uncle Darrell,” said Mark Sales, who has worked with Jordan for a couple decades and is his law partner at Diamond McCarthy. “Darrell is unique in that he is a superb lawyer, a strong advocate for his clients and is respected by opposing counsel and members of the judiciary.

“Darrell is truly one of the great trial lawyers and legal statesmen of our generation,” Sales said.

Jordan is philosophical about his two unsuccessful Dallas mayoral campaigns, noting he learned a lot about himself when the “good voters twice elected me to stay in the private sector.”

Jordan is an acknowledged “people person.” And it was people – former colleagues and friends – who convinced him to join Diamond McCarthy about a year ago.

“It’s a natural fit,” he said. “I enjoy helping them build.”

He also enjoys building support for the Salesmanship Club’s Momentous Institute, a grade school in Oak Cliff.

“Without exception, our kids graduate from high school. Many go to college,” he said.

Jordan is proud of his leadership in establishing the Dallas Bar Foundation’s Sarah T. Hughes Diversity Scholarship for minority law students at SMU. Since its inception in 1981, the program has awarded $1.9 million to more than 50 recipients who agree to practice in Dallas.

Jordan dismissed queries about retirement: “Naw. Why? I enjoy coming to work every day.”[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Carol Dinkins: A Trailblazer and the ‘Best Environmental Lawyer Ever’

HOUSTON (Oct. 20) – As a young Vinson & Elkins associate in Houston in the early 1970s, Carol Dinkins had to take an out-of-town client through the kitchen of an exclusive Houston club to reach a private room because women were not allowed in the main dining area at lunch.

A number of years later, Dinkins again would find herself entering an establishment through the kitchen. But this time she was in a formal dress and headed for the dais with President Reagan, who had appointed her to a high-ranking position in the Justice Department.

“That was the first I’d known of going though the kitchen as a dignitary,” Dinkins says. “Before I had to go through the kitchen because I was a woman.”

Dinkins has blazed many trails in her 44-year career. She was one of the first lawyers in Texas to develop a specialty in environmental law. Vinson & Elkins voted in 1979 to make Dinkins the first woman to make partner at a major Houston law firm.

In 1984, President Reagan appointed her as deputy attorney general. She was the first woman to become second in command at Justice.

In separate interviews, senior executives at Shell Oil and BP – two oil and gas companies that have relied on Dinkins legal advice over the years – describe Dinkins as probably the “best environmental lawyer ever.”

As The Wall Street Journal reported in 2010, “The first call BP executives made when they learned of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill was to their long-time legal adviser Carol Dinkins.”

It all started with Dinkins’ interest in the emerging specialty of environmental law.

Dinkins did not study environmental law at the University of Houston because no classes were offered before she graduated in 1971. Over the next two years – immersed in a coastal and marine program at the law school – she watched with great interest as Congress passed major waterway safety, marine life protection and clean water acts.

“All kinds of environmental law was passed very shortly after I got out of law school,” Dinkins says. “The research and writing and teaching program I went into really gave me an immediate immersion into the development of environmental law in the 1970s.”

A tip from a former classmate whose husband worked at Vinson & Elkins helped Dinkins become the fourth woman lawyer hired at the Houston firm and the first to demand to be placed on the partner track. The other two lawyers in the public law section handled air and water issues and everything else fell to Dinkins.

In her very first week, she found herself working on coastal zone permitting projects for Texas business giants George Mitchell and Perry Bass.

“Those were remarkable opportunities for a brand new lawyer,” Dinkins says. “The firm was totally supportive and very eager to turn such big matters over to me.”

Reagan’s election in 1980 presented another serendipitous opportunity for Dinkins, a Republican since childhood when her parents were among a handful of GOP faithful in South Texas. Backed with support from Bass, Gov. Bill Clements and former Gov. John Connally, Dinkins impressed the new administration with her expertise.

“They hadn’t had anyone with my level of experience in environmental law. Also, they didn’t have very many women candidates,” Dinkins says.

She served as assistant attorney general in charge of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1981 to 1983. It was an exciting time to run the division, which was in the process of developing criminal sanctions for polluters.

In 1984, after happily reviving her practice, Dinkins was asked to return to Washington as deputy attorney general, second in rank to Attorney General William French Smith.

“Everybody said you can’t pass this up,” says Dinkins. “They were right, and I’m glad I didn’t because it was another great, mind-blowing experience.”

Dinkins served in that position for a year, broadening her experience through work on immigration, federal prisons and drug enforcement.

Since leaving the Washington pressure cooker 30 years ago, Dinkins has handled many complicated, precedent-setting cases. She spent a year negotiating a 300-page consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department to remediate 60 sites in a dozen states where soil within the right-of-way of an interstate natural gas pipeline had been contaminated with PCBs and other substances.

“Nobody had ever done a linear cleanup project like that,” says Dinkins. “The project came in early and under budget.”

She also recalls the day she resolved two federal plea agreements for the same client involving environmental disasters 3,000 miles apart – a large Alaskan oil spill and a deadly explosion at a Texas oil refinery.

As Dinkins, 69, winds down her practice this year, she notes how the legal profession and the practice of environmental law has changed profoundly. There is now competition from law firms around the country. Consultants and in-house legal departments have taken over much of the permitting work.

Her pride of being a trailblazer for other women is tempered with the knowledge that too often she is still the only woman in a room of a dozen people, whether it is a law firm conference room or the board room of a Fortune 500 company.

“It’s still not as common or frequent as I would have hoped for at this point in the world,” she says. “Someday, I hope it will be different.”[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Too Many Lawyers, Not Enough Joe Jamails

HOUSTON (Oct. 19) – Two years ago, Stanford University asked Houston trial lawyer Joe Jamail to lecture a large group of students and alumni of its business school.

As he preached on the sad decline in the number of jury trials in the U.S. as a result of tort reform, a hand raised near the back of the auditorium.

“Don’t you think there are too many lawyers in America today?”

Jamail pounced.

“If you are talking about lawyers who are paper pushers, you are damn right there are,” he said. “But as long as there are bastard executives like you people who are stealing from each other and screwing each other over, you need more lawyers like me.”

After the lecture, executives from Apple introduced themselves and hired him on the spot to handle a contentious business dispute.

Joseph D. Jamail Jr. celebrates his 90^th birthday today. He is arguably the most famous and successful trial lawyer in history. He has tried more than 500 jury and bench trials, which resulted in more than $13 billion in judgments for his clients — not too shabby for a guy who failed torts in law school.

Jamail initially enrolled at the University of Texas in 1942 as a pre-med student, but received five F’s when he failed to show up for his final exams. He forged his father’s name on enlistment documents and joined the Marines.

Jamail returned home after the war and returned to UT to get his liberal arts degree and then law degree.

When a classmate bet him $100 that he couldn’t pass the bar exam during his second year of law school in 1952, he accepted the challenge and scored 76. The passing grade was 75.

“Shit, I’m overeducated,” he told his friends. “We used the $100 to buy a lot of beer and got drunk by the lake.”

Jamail’s first courtroom victory came while he was still in law school. A waitress at one of his favorite bars had cut her hand trying to open a bottle of beer. So Jamail and his classmates sued the beer’s bottling company.

“None of us knew what the hell we were doing,” says Jamail. “The thing was, the other side and the judge also knew we didn’t know what we were doing. Fortunately, the beer company offered us $750 to settle the case. We took it and ended up spending it all at the bar that night drinking.”

Jamail’s first brush with notoriety came in a case other lawyers rejected.

His client had three shots of bourbon before driving to get his family takeout fried chicken for dinner. On the way to the fast food restaurant, his car jumped the curb of the cement island in the middle of the street and crashed into a tree.

At the hospital, the driver’s blood-alcohol level tested at .22. He died a couple days later. The man’s widow asked the city to pay the funeral cost, but city officials just laughed at her.

Jamail says he agreed to take the case and drove to the spot where the accident occurred.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he says. “There was a tree growing in the middle of the damn street – a couple of them, in fact. I thought, what the hell is a tree doing growing in the middle of the street. A street sign, I could understand, but not a damn tree.”

Thinking creatively, Jamail sued the city of Houston claiming that the trees were a public nuisance. He won at trial, of course, and the city paid for the man’s funeral, plus $6,000 for pain and suffering. Plus the city had to cut down the trees.

“I got calls for the next two years from these tree-huggers cursing me for having the trees cut down,” he says.

No articles about Joe Jamail are complete without mentioning November 1985. He had been in court for several weeks trying a complex business dispute and had just sat down at his work desk at home to map out thoughts for closing arguments, which were scheduled for 9 a.m. the next morning.

“All of a sudden, I hear a car horn blowing outside my house,” he says.

A white limousine pulled into Jamail’s driveway and out jumped two of his best friends, singer Willie Nelson and former University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal.

“They started begging me to go out drinking with them and I tried telling them that this was the biggest damn case of my life and that I needed to prepare,” he says. “But they weren’t having any part of it. They kept me up all fucking night drinking. I could barely see straight the next morning.”

The record will show that Jamail did well. He told jurors that while the case seemed highly complicated, it was actually quite simple.

“This case is about people keeping their word and being honest,” he told jurors. “My client honored their word. The other side did not.”

The jury agreed, awarding Jamail’s client, Pennzoil Co., $10.53 billion against Texaco Inc. The case eventually settled for $3.3 billion. Jamail’s personal take topped $400 million.

“We celebrated that night at my house by eating hamburgers and drinking beer,” he says. “I’ve still got the $3 billion deposit slip on my wall.”[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Harry Reasoner: A Great Trial Lawyer with a Social Conscience

HOUSTON (Oct. 21) – Harry Reasoner’s idea of cutting back at work involves trying one or two major cases a year, handling a number of appeals and leading efforts to help low-income Texans with their civil law needs.

“I regard myself as working half time,” says the 76-year-old Vinson & Elkins stalwart, adding that he could only make such a claim because his wife wasn’t in earshot. “I really enjoy trying cases. There are not many other games I play that well.”

From winning a $1 billion judgment in an antitrust case to heading a 30-year effort to insure prison inmates’ First Amendment rights, Reasoner combines a litigator’s instinct with a strong sense of social justice.

Much of his proudest work – in the prison litigation and defending affirmative action in the Hopwood case involving the University of Texas School of Law – has been done pro bono.

“Figuring out how to educate our minority populations and people who grow up in poor economic circumstances is one of the most important problems our country faces, particularly in a state like Texas,” says Reasoner.

His easygoing, charming demeanor has helped him connect with jurors and disarm news reporters. He is credited with helping defend V&E’s reputation when its high-profile client Enron collapsed in spectacular fashion in 2001. Reasoner reassured clients and calmly endured questions from reporters looking to implicate the firm in the Enron scandal.

One of his favorite clients was “60 Minutes” correspondent Ed Bradley, who was sued for libel in connection with a report about an El Paso colonias developer. When a federal jury cleared Bradley and CBS after a 1997 trial, Bradley asked Reasoner what to say to the press.

“Ed, just tell them that sometimes the truth hurts,” Reasoner advised, and a beaming Bradley did just that.

When antitrust litigation was hot, Reasoner was in trial a lot. A big win came in 1989 when his trial team won a $1 billion jury verdict and judgment against western railroads that had conspired to block a coal slurry pipeline.

He obtained a take-nothing jury verdict for The Dallas Morning News in a $100 million antitrust suit brought by its competitor, the Dallas Times Herald. “It was a dangerous case because the Times Herald was going out of business and the competition by the Morning News had been hard ball,” says Reasoner.

From 1992-2001, Reasoner served as managing partner of the firm. Unwilling to give up his practice, he continued to play a key role in big cases. He won several hundred million dollars for Shell in an eight-month arbitration in Washington D.C. over responsibility for leaking plastic plumbing pipes that had caused problems for homeowners around the country.

Reasoner says the business demands of today’s law firms probably require a full-time managing partner. “It was hard to keep both balls in the air and I probably shouldn’t have tried,” he says.

His modesty downplays significant accomplishments during his tenure running the firm. Longtime colleague and fellow Lion Carol Dinkins lauds Reasoner’s leadership in persuading the management committee in 1997 to extend benefits to same-sex partners of the firm’s employees.

“Harry introduced that matter with such ease and in such a matter-of-fact way,” says Dinkins. “It was not a hard-fought debate. It was not a crisis in discussion. It was very calm, very thoughtful, and it was accomplished, and I think that’s a matter of great pride for Harry and our law firm.”

Reasoner recalls that some firm leaders were concerned about client backlash when V&E became the first Houston firm to recognize the rights of gay lawyers.

“We reached a consensus that we should do the right thing and felt we could deal with any client backlash. If we lost some business for doing the right thing, we were willing to accept that consequence,” says Reasoner. “I did not receive any complaints and we are not aware of any clients we lost because of it.”

In recent years, Reasoner represented the grandchildren of firm founder James Elkins in a dispute with the IRS over the value of their fractional interests in an inherited art collection. In 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ordered a $14.4 million refund in a ruling that affirmed the use of fractional interest discounts to reduce estate taxes on artworks.

Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Paul Cézanne and Henry Moore were among the artists represented in the collection. “It was fascinating to try because I got to learn about the art,” says Reasoner.

Like many of his contemporaries, Reasoner is concerned about the decline in jury trials and the difficulty that presents for young lawyers needing trial experience. He is critical of Congress for failing to keep federal judicial pay at reasonable levels and to provide adequate resources and technology for the courts.

Social justice remains a focus for Reasoner, who chairs the Texas Access to Justice Commission. He says the dramatic reduction in federal funds for legal services means the commission has to work even harder for state funding and to coordinate self-help efforts for pro se litigants.

“When they need a lawyer we have to turn four of five away because we don’t have the resources.” Reasoner says. “In 67 percent of divorces in Texas, people try to represent themselves.”[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]