Inadmissible: Voter ID Individual Plaintiffs Buck Trend

On Nov. 4, in what’s known as the Texas voter ID case, the U.S. Department of Justice, the NAACP, other plaintiffs and the state of Texas all filed proposals for discovery schedules. The three discovery-schedule proposals submitted in Texas State Conference of NAACP Branches v. John Steen, which filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, were all similar in timing, with one exception: the proposal submitted by individual plaintiffs represented by Chad Dunn of Houston’s Brazil & Dunn. DOJ, the NAACP and the state of Texas all proposed a schedule with a trial starting March 2015. But Dunn’s clients want a trial before November 2014 elections. U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos scheduled a hearing on the discovery and scheduling proposals on Nov. 15 in Corpus Christi. Dunn said, “Our position is that the case was already developed and tried before judges in Washington, D.C. and only returned” because of the U.S. Supreme Court decision last June in Shelby v. Alabama, in which a divided court struck down the formula devised by congress under §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, prompting the DOJ to file this suit against Texas in August.

West Coast Firm Lands in Austin

San Diego firm Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch moved into Texas by opening an office in Austin the week of Nov. 4. Alejandro Suarez, formerly of his own firm, Suarez International Law in Austin, has joined the firm as a partner in Austin. Suarez, who is licensed in Texas and Mexico, does international corporate work. Suarez made the move along with foreign exchange attorney Santiago Vazquez. Suarez says he opened Suarez International Law two years ago to focus on helping companies do business across the border in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. “We grew so fast in the two years, we needed a better platform to continue growing. Procopio is one of the best law firms in the U.S. doing cross-border transactions. They have a strong focus on international taxation,” he says. Suarez says he cannot disclose the names of clients, but he says he’s currently representing clients from Mexico, Equador, Brazil, Chili and Panama. The firm announced the new office on Nov. 7, but Suarez says it opened on Nov. 4. Tom Turner, managing partner of the 140-lawyer Procopio, says an Austin office ties into two of the firm’s key practice areas: international tax and technology. “We’ve got a very, very strong international tax practice group that does a tremendous amount of tax work across the border,” Turner says. “That group often thought, for a period of years at least, of setting up a presence there.” He says Austin if a good fit also because the firm has a “booming” technology practice in San Diego, and also recently opened an office in Menlo Park in the Silicon Valley. Turner says the firm doesn’t have immediate plans to add more lawyers in Austin, but expects lawyers from California offices to use the office when needed. The firm’s other offices are in San Diego, Del Mar and Menlo Park in California, and Phoenix.

Scalia Administer the Oaths