John Council

October 02, 2018 | Texas Lawyer

Dallas' Fifth Court of Appeals has reversed a decision denying arbitration to a lawyer in a lawsuit brought by two ex-clients who allege the attorney…

By John Council

4 minute read

October 01, 2018 | Texas Lawyer

“To do this, he would presumably need to take the LSAT, apply, and be admitted to a law school,” the Fifth Circuit wrote in a per curiam decision. “He would then likely need to suspend his law practice—12 hours of classes would almost make Luttrell a fulltime student.”

By John Council

2 minute read

September 28, 2018 | Texas Lawyer

In Palfreyman v. Gaconnet, Houston's Fourteenth Court of Appeals focused on § 38.001 (6) of the Texas Civil Practices & Remedies Code, an obscure law that allows people to recover attorney fees if their claim concerns “killed or injured stock.”

By John Council

4 minute read

September 28, 2018 | Texas Lawyer

On appeal the government argued that even if Angus McGinty's attorneys were constitutionally deficient, he waived his right to nonconflicted counsel.

By John Council

8 minute read

September 27, 2018 | Texas Lawyer

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has declined for a second time to dismiss excessive force claims against two Sachse police officers accused of wrongfully shooting a teenage boy.

By John Council

4 minute read

September 26, 2018 | Texas Lawyer

The Texas Supreme Court will soon decide whether a lawyer should be disqualified from a contested guardianship case involving an 88-year-old woman because he helped his legal assistant get a $350,000 loan from the woman, wrote her will, and later helped his employee be appointed as her guardian.

By John Council

4 minute read

September 24, 2018 | Texas Lawyer

The decision involves the 2005 detention of George Alvarez, a 17-year-old special-education student who had been arrested by Brownsville police for public intoxication and burglary of a motor vehicle.

By John Council

6 minute read

September 21, 2018 | Texas Lawyer

Pretrial settlements in industrial accident cases can work against plaintiffs when it comes time to try a case before a jury, making it easier for the defense to shift blame to a party that has already left the litigation. That dynamic is what Houston lawyer Vuk Vujasinovic was up against recently as he convinced a Jefferson County jury to hit a Beaumont crane company with a $44 million verdict in a wrongful death case.

By John Council

4 minute read

September 17, 2018 | Texas Lawyer

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has turned down the appeals of two death row inmates who argued their convictions should be overturned because their trials were presided over by a disgraced former federal judge whom they allege was “impaired” during their proceedings.

By John Council

4 minute read

September 13, 2018 | Texas Lawyer

A Virginia federal judge has prevented prominent Dallas attorney William Brewer III from representing the NRA in a contract dispute with an insurance company after the lawyer failed to disclose to the court that he was sanctioned for ethical violations in Texas.

By John Council

4 minute read