An Austin federal judge granted $1.9 million in attorney fees to lawyers who secured a $4.28 million final judgment in an attorney-recruiting firm's breach-of-contract and trade secrets lawsuit.

However, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman declined a request to sanction the defendant's DLA Piper attorneys and a co-counsel solo practitioner, despite a contentious history of discovery feuds that prompted courts to repeatedly warn attorneys they risked being sanctioned.