It’s official: Texas lawyers Randy Howry and Frank Stevenson will face off this spring, vying to become the next president-elect of the State Bar of Texas. The bar’s board of directors voted on Jan. 16 to make their candidacies official. The bar’s nominations and elections subcommittee in December 2014 had recommended the pair after conducting interviews with a number of possible nominees. In April, lawyers will cast ballots to choose between Howry, partner in Austin’s Howry, Breen & Herman, and Stevenson, partner in Locke Lord in Dallas. The winner will be president elect from June 2015 to June 2016, and will serve as president the following year. Read more about the candidates on TexasLawyer.com. The Texas Young Lawyers Association also chose Sam Houston of San Antonio and John Shaw of Fort Worth to run as president-elect candidates this year. Houston, a civil appellate lawyer, is a shareholder in Houston Dunn. Shaw is a civil litigator and associate at Whitaker Chalk Swindle & Schwartz.
Advertisement Review Fee
The fee that a lawyer must pay to get approval for a new advertisement will go up in June after the State Bar of Texas board of directors approved the increase on Jan. 16. The bar’s Advertising Review Committee proposed the increase, which bumps the lawyer advertising review fee from $75 to $100. The Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct require attorneys to submit ads for review to the committee. The fee proposal noted that the committee normally reviews 3,000 ads per year. “As the number of submissions has increased, so have the costs of operating the department. In addition, the travel expenses for the Advertising Review Committee meetings has increased,” said the proposal. The committee estimated that the fee increase would bring in $102,500 in additional revenue. The increase becomes effective on June 1.
