How to Make Friends and Influence People, East Texas Style
By Alison Frankel
June 25, 2009
Zusha Elinson has a hilarious piece in Thursday's Recorder about the lengths to which litigants in the Eastern District of Texas will go to make a good impression on that all-important jury pool. Did you know, for instance, that a high school senior from Hallville sold his grand champion steer at Farm City Week in 2006 to none other than Sam Baxter of McKool Smith--who just happened to be in the midst of representing Tivo Inc. in its make-or-break infringement trial against EchoStar Corp.? Yep. Baxter bought the steer at auction for a record-breaking $10,000. Then he named it Tivo and offered to donate it back to the 4-H student who'd raised it.Baxter told Elinson he was just doing something nice for the folks in Hallville, not trying to "steer" the outcome of the trial. (Hey, it was Elinson's pun.) But Tivo did win the case, racking up a $74 million damages verdict. The next year, Tivo bought another cow, and in subsequent years, other McKool clients have "followed in Tivo's hoof prints," Elinson reports, buying steer at the Farm City Week auction.
Frequent Eastern District infringement defendant Samsung, meanwhile, is the sponsor of "just about every major festival in Marshall," according to Elinson. The parade in May once known as Stagecoach Days is now called "Samsung Stagecoach Days," and the Samsung Ice Skating Rink is one of the highlights of the town's Christmas show, Wonderland of Lights. "What it does for Samsung is put their name out there in a positive way," said Keli Talbert, business development director for the Marshall Chamber of Commerce. "I would hope that [jurors] would listen to the case and the facts and that that would not sway them in one way or the other."
Not everyone thinks such overt corporate friendliness is a good idea, though. "Buying a cow like that I think is bullshit," said Texas jury consultant Doug Green. "I think it's insulting--the idea that people are so simple that something like that will influence the case."
