Well-known Houston plaintiff’s attorney, Carlene Rhodes Lewis, died on Monday at M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston from the effects of ovarian cancer. The Houston Chronicle obituary on Ms. Lewis’ life is here.
Ms. Lewis specialized in products liability cases, and she was at the forefront of developing the Vioxx cases against Merck. Ms. Lewis began investigating the cases against Vioxx in 2000 and, in August 2005, she was part of a team of three lawyers that won a $253.5 million jury verdict against Merck in Brazoria County district court, just south of the Houston metro area. Over 20 million people took Vioxx before Merck took it off the market in September 2004, and the company is now facing around 11,500 lawsuits by about 23,000 plaintiffs. So far, the plaintiffs and Merck have split the six cases that have gone to trial, and about a dozen other cases are scheduled for trial before the end of this year.
Ms. Lewis moved to Houston after finishing law school in 1984 and joined Sewell & Riggs, where she specialized in the defending product liability lawsuits. About five years later, she and her former Sewell & Riggs colleague, Houston attorney Daniel Goforth, formed their own firm and began pursuing plaintiff’s cases. Over the past 17 years, Ms. Lewis was a respected and well-liked member of the formidable Houston plaintiff’s bar.
A memorial service for Ms. Lewis will be held Friday, June 9, at 3:00 pm at Chapelwood United Methodist Church in Houston. The eulogy will be given by her long-time friend and colleague in various plaintiff’s cases, Mark Lanier.

After former University of Houston Law Center Dean Nancy Rapaport resigned under pressure recently, a friend asked me who I thought the UH Law Center should hire as the new dean. My reply: “The best replacement is already on the faculty — Ray Nimmer.”
It appears that someone may have been listening.
Earlier this week, the University announced that Professor Nimmer — one of the most prolific legal minds in Texas — has been named interim dean of the UH Law Center.
Professor Nimmer is one of the nation’s leading authorities on business and bankruptcy law, computer information licensing, e-commerce, and related intellectual property issues, all of which are subjects that he has addressed in the 20 or so books and numerous articles that he has written over his superlative 30 year teaching career. Even more importantly, he is a gifted teacher who has taught a remarkably broad variety of courses at the UH Law Center, including Contracts, Contract Drafting, Evidence, Bankruptcy, Corporate Reorganization Law, Internet Law, Electronic Commerce, Secured Financing Law, Negotiable Instruments, Copyright Law, Information Law, Sales, and Licensing Law. Professor Nimmer’s blog is here, and he comments on his decision to accept the interim appointment here.
This is Professor Nimmer’s second stint as interim dean of the Law Center. Frankly, it’s highly unlikely that the search committee for a new dean will find a more-qualified candidate for the permanent dean position than Professor Nimmer. Here’s hoping that the search committee and the UH Board of Regents realize that and name this long-time treasure of Houston’s academic community as the new UH Law Center Dean.

It’s not easy finding a hotel room in Houston this week, and the reason is not the influx of media-types for the Lay-Skilling trial.
The Offshore Technology Conference — one of Houston’s oldest and largest annual conventions — begins today at the Reliant Park convention facilities. As over 50,000 engineers and industry executives descend upon Houston this week for the conference, more than 2,000 exhibitors from about 30 countries will fill nearly every cranny of the almost 500,000 square feet of exhibit space at Reliant Center.
The OTC covers state-of-the-art technology for offshore drilling, exploration, production, and environmental protection, and it is the world energy industry’s foremost event for the development of offshore resources. This is the 37th straight year that industry engineers, technicians, executives, operators, scientists, and managers have gathered in Houston for the OTC, and the conference’s exhibit floor on the floor of Reliant Stadium — including massive and specialized equipment and technological devices used in the extraction of oil and gas from offshore locations — is one of the more fascinating that you will ever see at any convention.
Although the OTC is an industry conference rather than one that caters to the masses, the OTC has always been interesting in that it tends to mirror the state of the local Houston economy. During the early 1970’s through the early 1980’s, the conference boomed as increased global demand for energy and Middle East embargoes ratched up the price of oil. After conference attendance topped out at almost 110,000 in 1982, the prolonged bust in the energy industry in the mid-1980’s resulted in substantially decreased attendance, as in 1984 when the conference was held without an exhibition of equipment and technology at all. In the late 1980’s, the expense of putting on the conference even prompted some industry participants to question whether the convention had become an overpriced luxury.
Nevertheless, over the past 15 years or so, the OTC has grown steadily to regain its stature as one of the key annual oil and gas industry conferences, and last year’s attendance of more than 50,000 was the highest since the 1982 record. A pass to the exhibit hall is usually easy to obtain, so check it out if you have a chance. It’s well worth the effort.

Following on this post from a couple of weeks ago, Michael J. Wing, an attorney who lives in Tyler but practices out of Houston, faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty in Tyler earlier this week to wire fraud charges over defrauding one investor of $500,000 in 2004.
Wing had been charged with 18 counts of securities and wire fraud and, although his plea deal involves only one defrauded investor, he also admitted to defrauding 10 investors of more than $7 million. No sentencing date has been scheduled yet. Hat tip to Letter of Apology for the news.

Longtime Houston businessman and Texas Democratic leader Billy Goldberg died this past weekend at the age of 90. The Chronicle story on Billy’s life and death is here.
Billy was one of the many colorful larger-than-life characters who I have had the privilege of getting to know while practicing law in Houston over the past 27 years. A well-known Democratic Party activist for much of his life, Billy was in his late 70’s when I first met him. By that time, he had put most of his political activities aside to concentrate on business interests.
Billy was a risk-taker in business, so he had his share of financial and legal challenges. Eight or nine years ago, when he was in his early 80’s, Billy called me to help him work out a particularly complex jumble of business and legal problems. After a long but delightful meeting in which Billy laid out his problems in between anecdotes about LBJ and John Connally — and reminding me of possible help that he could receive from Clinton Administration officials — I presented a couple of alternative strategies, one of which was simply to pull back and prepare for retirement:

“Billy, you’re in your early 80’s,” I reasoned. “This approach would allow you to retire comfortably. Doesn’t that make most sense at this point in your life?”
“No, Tom, I don’t think so,” replied Billy with a wry smile. “The way I see it, I’ve only got six or seven more years of really good income-producing potential before I think about retiring. I don’t want to waste that potential!”

Six or seven more “really good income-producing years” after the age of 80? I just hope I have a fraction of Billy’s energy if I reach my early 80’s! Rest in peace, friend.

University of Houston Law Center Dean Nancy Rapoport resigned yesterday. This Chronicle article on the resignation suggests that the resignation was prompted by a stormy meeting last week in which the Dean was criticized by students and faculty for, among other things, a drop by the UH Law Center of almost 20 places (from 50 to 69) over the past four years in U.S. News & World Report rankings of U.S. law schools. Christine Hurt over at Conglomerate provides perspective on Dean Rapoport’s tenure at UH.
I do not know the reasons for Dean Rapoport’s resignation, but if it is truly a result of criticism over the drop in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, then the critics ought to be ashamed of themselves. True experts in law school evaluation have long considered the U.S. News rankings as highly defective and misleading. University of Texas Law Professor Brian Leiter, who authors a much more well-reasoned and objective ranking of U.S. law schools than the U.S. News rankings, currently ranks the UH Law Center faculty as the second-best of Texas law schools (behind only UT) and better than the faculties of the law schools at SMU and Baylor, both of which are ranked higher than UH in the U.S. News rankings.

The Board of Regents of Texas Southern University voted Monday to terminate the employment of embattled TSU president Priscilla Slade for cause after an outside law firm’s report concluded that Slade and TSU’s former chief financial officer had violated TSU policy regarding reimbursement of hundreds of thousands of dollars of Slade’s expenses. The prior posts on the Slade affair are here.
Slade’s problems began in January after she had moved into a new home near Memorial Park. Slade billed TSU for $86,467 in home furnishings, $138,159 in landscaping services and $56,010 in security-related equipment for the new home. After regents questioned certain of the expenses, she reimbursed the university for the landscaping expenses, which Slade contends she always planned to pay but which TSU employees mistakenly paid. However, a report by Bracewell & Giuliani — the outside law firm that the board hired to conduct an investigation into Slade’s expenses — found that Slade authorized the landscaping work without knowing how she would pay for it and without prior approval of the board. The law firm concluded that Slade initially intended for the university to cover the costs.
Of course, it didn’t help Slade that TSU’s former CFO who actually signed the checks for the reimbursements to Slade has a criminal background stemming from passing hot checks several years ago. No one has explained to date how the former CFO got the position at TSU in the first place.
The DA’s office continues to investigate the matter.

Embattled Texas Southern University President Priscilla Slade has apparently decided to take a page from the playbook of Steve Spurrier — that is, an aggressive offense is the best defense.
According to this Matthew Tresaugue/Chronicle article, President Slade — who is on paid leave pending the outcome of the TSU board’s ongoing investigation into allegations that she has embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the school through reimbursement of unauthorized expenses — has recently gone on a public relations offensive:

This week, Slade started talking in public about the case, meeting Sunday with some of Houston’s most prominent black leaders at the Rev. Bill Lawson’s house.
She later granted her first interview since the inquiry began to Lawson’s daughter, Melanie, at KTRK (Channel 13). Slade also sent a letter explaining the expenses to the Houston Chronicle, instead of giving an interview.
On Wednesday, Slade defended her spending and highlighted the achievements of her seven-year presidency for an hour without commercial interruption on KCOH-AM (1430), the city’s oldest black radio station. Mike Petrizzo, the station’s general manager, said he provided the airtime at the request of U.S. Rep. Al Green.

However, Slade is not apparently not ready to answer questions from all comers at this point:

Green and state Rep. Sylvester Turner interviewed Slade in the studio. She also answered questions from callers, who included former TSU regent Willard Jackson, the Rev. Manson Johnson and the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church.
Slade is a member of Caldwell’s church, and TSU’s auditor has raised questions about $6,500 of university money she spent with the church. [. . .]
The guest hosts did not provide the call-in number for listeners.
Michael Harris, host of the station’s morning show for 24 years, said he was told not to ask questions and only one caller was among his regulars. When asked after the program if Slade’s explanations resonated with listeners, Harris expressed doubt.
“I don’t think anyone who is a regular listener of the program will be persuaded because I wasn’t allowed to talk and the people who usually call didn’t talk,” he said. “It was a show, but not a talk show. There was no dissenting opinion.”

Slade’s strategy is to portray the allegations against her as, at best, a civil matter in an attempt to dissuade the District Attorney’s office from pursuing criminal charges. Although a good offense can be the best defense in certain cases, this particular strategy appears to be the equivalent of a “Hail Mary” pass to me. If Slade does have at least a colorable defense for the reimbursements, then the best way to avoid prosecution is to persuade the TSU board’s law firm of that defense so that the firm reports to the TSU board and the D.A.’s office that recovery of the funds from her in a civil lawsuit is uncertain. In that case, the D.A.’s office might conclude that proving criminal charges beyond a reasonable doubt is unlikely and, thus, elect not to pursue criminal charges.
Unfortunately for Slade, Hail Mary passes usually don’t work.

I knew from my friends with Galveston homes that the venerable Flagship Hotel had seen its better days, but I didn’t realize that it had come to this:

United States Attorney Chuck Rosenberg announced today the return of a 39-count indictment charging Daniel Yeh, 52, of Sugar Land, Texas, with 22 counts of wire fraud and 17 counts of filing false claims against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Yeh is the principal owner of Flagship Hotel Ltd., which operates the Flagship Hotel (Flagship), located at 2501 Seawall Boulevard in Galveston, Texas.

Continue reading →

Anne Linehan and Charles Kuffner are two of Houston’s best bloggers on local political matters, and they have been covering an emerging story that amazingly appears to be flying below the radar screen of most Houstonians — i.e., Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt‘s plan announced last week proposing to place surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets, shopping malls and even private homes to fight crime during a shortage of police officers.

Building permits should require malls and large apartment complexes to install surveillance cameras, Hurtt said. And if a homeowner requires repeated police response, it is reasonable to require camera surveillance of the property, he said.

And the Chief’s justification for surveillance cameras in private homes?:

“I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?”

H’mm. That is not the kind of reasoning that one would find in, say, The Federalist Papers, now is it?
Based on the above response, it appears that Chief Hurtt must have been asleep during the Constitutional Law course while earning his criminal justice degree. Except that, it turns out that the Chief doesn’t have a criminal justice degree. Rather, he has a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Arizona State University and a master’s in something called “organizational management” from the University of Phoenix.
As you might expect, as this story filters through the media and blogosphere, people are scratching their heads and wondering exactly what is going on down here. The Spoof ran a story under the headline “President Bush taps Harold Hurtt to replace Michael Chertoff”:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After hearing Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt’s remarks in one of the Police Chief’s recent press conferences, President George W. Bush gave praise to Chief Hurtt.
“He wants cameras in people’s homes. That is my kind of man,” said President Bush. “This man is going to be my new Homeland Security czar.”
When Chief Hurtt was asked by one reporter why people who aren’t doing anything wrong should be surveilled, he responded: “Only al Qaeda sympathizers and terrorists would protest such a policy. Are you with bin Laden?”
“It was that response to the reporter’s question that really got the President’s attention,” explained White House aide Emma Faker.

Seriously, I recognize that Mayor White is a competent fellow and has a reasonably good understanding of what makes Houston tick. But how is it that Chief Hurtt’s outrageous public comments aren’t grounds for termination of his employment in a position where he is supposed to be responsible for securing the rights of citizens?