The Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association launched an ethics hotline in late June that already gets two to three calls a day from lawyers searching for advice for real-life ethical dilemmas, says Robert Pelton , chairman of the TCDLA Ethics Committee. “It’s a 911 call for lawyers,” says Pelton, a partner in Pelton Law Offices in Houston, who came up with the idea for the TCDLA Ethics Hotline. Criminal-defense lawyers can call (512) 646-2734 and leave a voicemail, which is forwarded to Pelton’s e-mail address, he says. Pelton says he answers some calls and forwards other hotline messages to a team of 10 criminal-defense lawyers with the hope of answering the questions immediately. Most answers come “in just a few hours,” and Pelton says he seeks a maximum response time of 24 hours. So far, lawyers have called with questions about conflicts of interest, fees for drafting legal contracts and referral fees for new cases.
Litigators Move
A group of 11 litigators, led by Jay Brown , joined Winstead in Houston on July 1. They came from Beirne, Maynard & Parsons , a litigation firm based in Houston. Brown, Hilary Borow and Steve Wedemeyer joined Winstead as shareholders in the firm’s commercial litigation practice group. The eight associates with the group are Matthew Foytlin , Sean Milligan , Bruce Wilkin , Brannon Dillard , Andrew Edelman , Dawn Norman , Carol Wilkins and Lauren Sneed . Brown says Winstead offers him and his group “a lot of capacity in terms of lawyers [and] in expertise to get certain work done.” Because Winstead is a regional firm, he says, it’s a good fit for his practice, which is litigation in Texas for clients from around the country. He also sees cross-selling opportunities at Winstead. Brown says his clients include Air Liquide America of Orlando; Corrections Corp. of America of Nashville; and Zurich America Insurance Co. of Schaumberg, Ill. The 11-lawyer group in Houston is only part of Dallas-based Winstead’s lateral hiring in 2011; the 268-lawyer firm has brought on 39 laterals so far this year. Brit Brown , managing partner of Beirne, Maynard, says he wishes Brown and his group success at their new firm. He says the group that left did a lot of insurance work, and 55-lawyer Beirne, Maynard has been expanding in other areas, such as energy and commercial litigation. “We can fill the gap; in fact, it is creating an additional need for hiring, and we already had some hiring in process,” Brown says.
