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Frequently the press, when reporting on legal proceedings, will use loose or inaccurate language surrounding trial-court activities – particularly when describing the jury’s and judge’s roles in a lawsuit. “Today the jury delivered its judgment,” “the trial court...
This Emerging Topic is an Executive Summary from a lengthy, thoroughly researched law review article, which James Holmes published with the St. Mary’s Law Journal in February 2020. The Texas civil justice system and business owners badly need further reforms to laws...
Attorneys must work with experts when they prepare reports and written work product. But attorneys must not control the work process or overly influence it. An expert who smacks of attorney control is not credible and likely will face rigorous impeachment by the...
This article’s previous installment canvassed the mechanics of early pre-trial activity and the discovery process, with particular focus on business cases. Holmes PLLC frequently handles commercial disputes, which invariably depend on expert witnesses. Experts fall...
After assessing venue, Holmes PLLC next discusses with each client the mechanics of the lawsuit it faces, or must file. Petitions and Answers. Lawsuits begin with “petitions” in Texas courts (and “complaints” or “petitions” in other jurisdictions) and “citations”...
“My company just got notice that we were sued by a party to our sales contract in a rural Texas county [or in downtown Dallas].What should we do now?” Or, this: “My company has had enough of our business partner and is losing too much money because of him. We hate...
What are post-production deductions in gas royalties? Post-production deductions (“PPDs”) are charges against royalty payments that reflect a producer’s (lessee’s) efforts to transform newly produced gas into a marketable product and then to sell the product. Such...
This installment in Holmes PLLC’s emerging topics continues a survey of how business people can inadvertently become partners with one another, by operation of common law and statutory law. As in the movie “The Founder” – about Ray Kroc and other businesspeople who...
Holmes PLLC regularly consults with business people who do not understand that they’ve become partners, or potential partners, with the people they’ve done business with. “I thought we were doing business together – I didn’t think we were partners!” – is a common...
A businessman can also become a fiduciary informally in situations that give rise to a special relationship of confidence and trust. Texas law recognizes an “informal fiduciary duty” that arises from relationships of “trust and confidence” that are “moral, social,...