This week, a federal court jury convicted Rudy Delgado, a suspended justice on the Texas 13th Court of Appeals (Corpus Christi) of eight criminal charges stemming from his acceptance of bribes, violation of the Travel Act, and obstruction of justice when he was a state district judge.  After his indictment in February 2018, Delgado was suspended from his seat on the 93rd District Court by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Due to a technicality that prevented his name from being removed from the ballot, however, Delgado won election to a seat on the 13th Court of Appeals in November 2018. He was again suspended and is prohibited from serving in any judicial office. The fact that a judge under indictment for accepting bribes can run for higher office and win should be a major red flag for Texans. Delgado’s indictments were not a secret—they had been widely reported for months in the local news leading up to the 2018 elections. His opponent was an accomplished and well-known city attorney, former county attorney and former district court judge who serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. But unfortunately, many Texans simply don’t have enough knowledge about the

In the past few months, we’ve spoken often about the ubiquitous presence of legal services advertising on the airwaves. In addition to your standard car wreck and mesothelioma ads, ads targeting specific products, medications or medical devices are designed to catch people’s attention and compel them to take action (specifically, to call a lawyer). But recently, there’s been a turn of events in one advertising cottage industry. The New York Times reported last year on a widespread scheme targeting women with pelvic mesh implants. Using aggressive tactics, including cold calls to their homes and alarming advertising, the women were coaxed into having risky and often unnecessary surgical procedures to remove the mesh. According to the Times, these procedures made the women “more lucrative plaintiffs against medical device manufacturers.” The women were told they wouldn’t have to pay up front for the cost of the procedure, and that their lawsuit awards would cover their expenses, plus some. Many of the women suffered severe adverse reactions to the removal of the mesh, which is designed to adhere to tissue once it’s implanted. The procedures—which were often done quickly and at a surgical center in a strip mall—left them in extreme pain and

California has made quite a reputation for itself, and not in a good way. Case in point: the much ballyhooed addition of coffee to California’s recklessly broad Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, known as Proposition 65. The proposition “requires the state to maintain and update a list of chemicals known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.” Anyone can file a lawsuit alleging that a company has failed to warn consumers of their exposure to substances on the Prop. 65 list, and as the Wall Street Journal reports, in 2018 lawyers made more than $27.25 million from Prop. 65 settlements. So how did coffee— one of the most widely consumed beverages in America—land in Prop. 65’s crosshairs? According to the Journal, “In 2010 [Raphael] Metzger sued Starbucks and 90 other coffee manufacturers and distributors, claiming they failed to warn consumers about the cancer risks of acrylamide. Last year a Los Angeles Superior Court ordered the coffee companies to put cancer warnings on their beverages. Mr. Metzger sought as much as $2,500 in civil penalties for each cup of coffee they sold over at least a decade.” It took another regulation, which takes effect October 1, stating that coffee

We all know better than to double dip. It is the epitome of bad manners. Highly frowned upon. And if you’re a county official in Texas, it’s also illegal. But that didn’t stop one county attorney. According to the Southeast Texas Record, David Garcia, the Brooks County attorney, has signed a private contingency fee contract to represent Brooks County in an opioid lawsuit. Garcia and his law firm are named as co-counsel along with another firm that is involved in at least one other opioid lawsuit in the state. Under the terms of the contract, the private attorneys would receive 35 percent of any recovery the county is awarded, one of the highest percentage fees being paid by a local government in Texas for opioid representation. That fee is split 50/50 between the two firms. So, not only is Garcia continuing to draw his taxpayer-funded salary as Brooks County attorney, but under the contingency fee contract between his firm and the county, he is also entitled to receive 17.5 percent of any money the county recovers in the lawsuit. Therein lies the problem. The Record highlights this important provision of the Texas Local Government Code: “If a county officer is

While the U.S. marked the Memorial Day holiday, May 27 also marked the official end of the 86th Legislative Session. The Legislature adjourned sine die, having accomplished a number of important priorities for Texans, including several important reforms to the legal system. We’ll have a more thorough review of notable bills for you in the next Advocate, but until then, here’s an update on the status of some of TLR’s key bills. Gov. Abbott has until June 16 to sign or veto bills. Any legislation that he does not sign or veto becomes law without his signature. SENT TO THE GOVERNOR: Transparency in Local Government Contracting—House Bill 2826 This bill is one of TLR’s primary legislative priorities. It will ensure that local governments are transparent and open when entering into contingency fee contracts with attorneys. It also ensures that the local government keeps more of any legal settlement it may be awarded, rather than giving an exorbitant share of the recovery to the attorney. House bill author Rep. Greg Bonnen and Senate sponsor Joan Huffman devoted significant time to working with stakeholders to develop a bill that allows local governments to continue hiring contingency fee attorneys, while giving taxpayers the

We’ve shared with you a number of reforms the Texas Legislature is working on this legislative session to improve our legal system. Now with less than a month to go in the 86th Legislature, we’ve entered the point in session where bills begin moving, and moving quickly. Here’s an update on the status of where some of these important reforms stand in the process: Transparency in Local Government Contracting—House Bill 2826 This bill is one of TLR’s primary legislative priorities, and was passed by the Texas House of Representatives on May 2 with 103 votes. The bill implements important changes to ensure contingency fee legal contracts are transparent and open, and that the local government gets to keep more of any legal settlement it may be awarded. House bill author Rep. Greg Bonnen devoted significant time to working with stakeholders to develop a bill that allows local governments to continue hiring contingency fee attorneys, while giving taxpayers the transparency they expect any time a private attorney is hired to do the government’s work. It is now pending before the Senate, where Sen. Joan Huffman is the bill sponsor, and we are hopeful the Senate will concur on the House bill

Let us give you a scenario: A lawyer is caught bribing a judge with cash and other gifts in order to secure favorable decisions, such as dismissing criminal charges against the lawyer’s clients. This happened at least 20 times over the course of eight years. This kickback scheme is eventually exposed. The judge is charged with a federal offense and is awaiting trial, and has been kicked off the bench (although, in a mind-boggling turn of events, is allowed to remain on the ballot in the 2018 elections and wins a seat on the court of appeals). And the lawyer? You assume he’s been sent to jail, or at least lost his license to practice law. For one South Texas lawyer, that is not the case. According to an article in Texas Lawyer, Noe Perez (the attorney in question) was arrested and charged in May 2018 with conspiracy to commit bribery, to which he pleaded guilty. He’s awaiting sentencing for his crime. But in the meantime, he is still practicing law in the very courthouse where he was caught bribing a judge. This has rubbed some area lawyers the wrong way. From Texas Lawyer: “‘This is an ongoing source of

Every day, Texans are inundated with a relentless stream of advertising for legal services. As we’ve discussed before in this blog, personal injury trial lawyer advertising is neither new nor unique to a certain part of the country. If you’re watching TV, it seems these ads are inescapable. A new report from the American Tort Reform Association shows just how common these ads are. In the fourth quarter of 2018, Texas TV viewers in the state’s four largest media markets saw an average of $4.1 million worth of legal services ads. This translates to an average of one legal services ad every minute in these four media markets. In Dallas-Fort Worth, viewers saw an average of 14 local legal services ads an hour. Viewers in Houston saw 12 times as many legal services ads as commercials for banks. San Antonio saw the highest amount of spending on legal services ads, despite the media market being only a third of the size of Dallas and Houston. In Austin, viewers saw eight legal services ads for every one supermarket ad and four times as many legal services ads as fast food ads. These are just local legal services ads. This does not

We’ve all been there. You check the mail, minding your own business, and there it is. A jury summons. Unfortunately, most people see this as an occasion for eye rolling and immediately begin attempting to finagle their way out of it. But hear us out on this one. Jury duty shouldn’t be thought of as, well, a duty. A chore carried out begrudgingly, like taking out the trash, only because you have to. Jury duty, rather, should be considered a privilege. Just like voting, it is one of the most fundamental ways we participate in our government. When our founding fathers wrote the Constitution, they envisioned everyone taking an active role in making this great, big experiment of the American republic work. Think of it like a start-up company today—young, scrapping, all-hands-on-deck, working together to revolutionize “the way things have always been done.” You see, they weren’t far removed from a time and place where trials by jury were necessary to protect against government oppression, whether from the crown or a judge or a prosecutor. The existence of jury trials was so absolutely fundamental to the founders’ view of how a model country should work that they included it in

We speak often about the mushrooming cost of litigation, both in terms of time and money. The fact is that for many Texans, hiring a lawyer is expensive, and quite often, cases are too risky or too time consuming for the average person to pursue. This has effectively shut a large swath of Texans out of the court system. It’s also the reason why we’ve seen a rise in alternative dispute resolution mechanisms like mediation and arbitration. They’ve become a necessity for those who simply cannot afford to pursue litigation through the traditional court system. We at TLR think there is a better way. And this session, the Legislature is poised to improve access to the courts for every Texan through two pieces of legislation, Senate Bill 2342 and House Bill 3336. These bills expand on successful procedures that Texas has already implemented to expedite civil lawsuits. That means more lawsuits can be resolved quicker and at less expense. For example, justice of the peace courts handle civil cases with less than $10,000 in controversy. These courts handle caseloads quickly, use informal procedures and don’t require a lawyer, making them easily accessed by Texans. SB 2342 and HB 3336 expand