The TLR blog, on the record.

In Defense of Jury Duty

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.

Ensuring Texans Have Access to Courts

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. We at TLR think there is a better way.

When Enough is Enough

Unlike us here at TLR, most people don’t think about tort reform or the legal system on a daily basis (or even a monthly basis, for that matter). That is until lawsuit abuse flares up to impact something in their daily lives. Enter Apple and the Eastern District of Texas...

Time for Transparency

It’s time to make contingency-fee contracting consistent and transparent. The statutes and regulations in place for state contracts have successfully allowed the state of Texas to hire private attorneys when necessary, to keep more of the money from these legal awards and to bring more transparency to the process. What has worked for the state will work for its political subdivisions.

Analyzing Texas’ Anti-SLAPP Law

The 2019 State of the Judiciary

When Technology and Litigation Collide

Technology is inseparable from modern life. It’s logical that the advances that make our daily lives more convenient would also be applied to industries like litigation. The question, though, is whether technology encourages additional litigation or discourages additional innovation?

Who Wins When Private Lawyers Encourage Government Litigation?

There is a time and a place for local governments to partner with private attorneys to pursue claims in court. But some of these local lawsuits can actually interfere with efforts to address public policy challenges.

An Open Letter

The U.S. Supreme Court just heard argument in a lawsuit filed against you alleging failure to provide an adequate warning about one of your prescription drugs. You had asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow you to warn consumers that use of your osteoporosis medicine might create an increased risk for upper-leg fractures. The FDA refused to approve the warning you requested, and so you moved forward using the warning label the FDA did approve, which is the only thing you could do.

Gone to Texas

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

For watchdogs of the Texas legal system, the American Tort Reform Association’s annual Judicial Hellholes report provides some good news and some bad news.

Hitching Your Wagon to the Lone Star State

With 2018 winding down, Texas managed to squeeze in one more big national economic ranking before the ball drops.

Third-Party Litigation Financing 101

For those of us who only play lawyers on TV, the legal world and its jargon can be perplexing. Being deposed in the legal world doesn’t (usually) involve any sort of Game of Thrones-like coup.

The Tort Tax Lives On

You could pay for a couple of months’ rent in a nice apartment in Austin, Dallas or Houston. $3,535 gets you more than halfway through a semester of tuition at The University of Texas at Austin. It could also buy you more than 1,100 gallons of milk, more than 1,300 gallons of gas and nearly 600 gallons of Blue Bell ice cream.

Storm Chasing Lawyers: Where Are They Now?

Does Man’s Best Friend Stand a Chance in Court?

Picture this: You are the defendant in a lawsuit. You spend thousands of dollars and months preparing to defend your case in a court of law. You hire an attorney to help navigate the web of legal issues created by this litigation.Then the day arrives. You show up to court, and sitting on the other side of the courtroom is the plaintiff…a monkey.

When an Abundance of Caution Leads to an Abundance of Cost

The New York Times recently looked into “defensive medicine,” or the practice of doctors ordering excessive medical tests in an attempt to stave off medical liability lawsuits. Testing out of an abundance of caution, many doctors believe, can potentially shield a physician from being sued in the event of an issue with a patient down the road. But as it turns out, this understandable “CYA” by health providers is costing all of us big bucks.

The Great Tuna Settlement of 2015

A recent newspaper article spurred us to look into The Great Tuna Settlement of 2015. What we found, of course, was more evidence of client recruitment by enterprising plaintiff lawyers.

Keeping the Texas Economy Humming

Texas is turning heads, yet again. The latest national recognition comes from CNBC, which recently named Texas the Best State for Business in 2018. This makes the Lone Star State the first to snag the top spot four times in the study’s 12-year history.

Mass Marketing by Mass Tort Lawyers

The End of an Era for One Storm-Chasing Lawyer

TLR spent the 2015 and 2017 legislative sessions working to fix the problems storm-chasing lawyers were creating for Texas property owners.

Ambulance Chasing Our Veterans

Barratry—more commonly known as ambulance chasing—is one of the biggest challenges currently facing Texas’ legal system. Barratry has been illegal in the Lone Star State for decades. But that small technicality hasn’t stopped the practice from flourishing.

Texans Overwhelmingly Support Common-Sense Reform

The Texas Legislature last year overwhelmingly passed a common-sense lawsuit reform to keep storm-chasing lawyers from hijacking property insurance claims and making insurance coverage more expensive for us all. The TLR-inspired legislation passed with active support by Governor Greg Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.

Judges Matter