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Sometimes you have to break the rules Cross examination is a great case of “ya gotta learn the rules before you break ‘em.” The rules were codified by Irving Younger in his famous Ten Commandments of Cross Examination. I’ve highlighted in bold the ones I break most often: I. Be brief. II. Short questions, plain words. III. Always ask leading questions. IV. Don’t ask a question to which you do not know the answer. V. Listen to the witness’s answers. VI. Don’t quarrel with the witness. VII. Don’t allow the witness to repeat his direct testimony. VIII. Don’t permit the […]

Ask AI to generate a short history of the FTC’s action against noncompetes, and it might look something like this: FTC: We’re banning employee noncompetes. Business lobbies: This ban is bad for business! We have to stop this. Federal courts: We’re stopping this ban. Voters: This inflation sucks. We’re voting for a new administration!  FTC: The issue is moot. We’re not banning noncompetes anymore. Business lobbies: Yay!   FTC: Don’t get too excited. We’re still going after businesses that use noncompetes unfairly. See our press release about employee noncompetes in the pest control industry. Business lobbies: This is bad for […]

As I write this, it’s Friday night and I feel all right. See, my firm recently obtained and collected a judgment for attorney’s fees for a defendant in a Texas noncompete lawsuit. After a bench trial, the court entered Preliminary Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, ruling for our client that the noncompete was unenforceable. After further evidence and briefing on attorney’s fees, the court entered Additional Findings Regarding Claim for Attorney’s Fees and a Final Judgment for $39,355 in attorney’s fees. I know, I know. Those are rookie numbers in this racket. Next time we gotta pump those […]

So I was talking to a client about his lawsuit. “Yeah, they want a response to their settlement offer,” I said, “or if we’re not going to settle, they want to schedule your deposition.” “What’s a deposition?” he said. That’s like asking a football coach, “what’s a first down?” If you work in litigation, like I do, it’s an obvious thing. But in fairness, if you don’t have experience with litigation, you might have no idea. Or even if you know what a deposition is, like from watching Suits or something, you probably don’t really know how it works. I […]

Can a plaintiff “plead around” TUTSA preemption by alleging misappropriation of confidential information that is not a trade secret? For regular people, or even lawyers if they don’t handle trade secrets lawsuits, that may sound like some real inside baseball, but it’s an important issue that often comes up in my Texas litigation practice. I’ll explain. Let’s take the typical case where a company sues a former employee for taking super-secret documents to a competitor. The company will allege misappropriation of trade secrets under the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act (TUTSA). But the company will rarely stop there. It will […]

When I started this blog ten years ago, there was no ChatGPT, no Claude, no Gemini. If you wanted to know something like the legal definition of a “trade secret,” you had to use a primitive tool called Google to find the answer. Those dark days are over. AI has now materially improved everyone’s quality of life. Don’t believe me? Consider a recent Annenberg survey finding that at least 17% of Americans believe AI will have a positive impact on the country over the next decade. We’re at the dawn of a golden age. Especially when it comes to legal […]

“Sting! Der Stingelhopper. Makin’ copies! The McStingsterrrr.” Those of you above a certain age will remember this classic Saturday Night Live bit. It was silly and pointless, but funny and memorable. More about copy machines later. The Price Undercutting Theory As we start the year 2026, I’m wondering if the tide is turning against the “price undercutting” theory in trade secrets litigation. It’s a common theory that companies assert when an employee leaves and joins a competitor. The idea is that the former employee knows the company’s super-secret prices and shares them with his new employer, allowing the new employer […]

Should you sign a noncompete proposed by your employer? The short answer is no. There are some good reasons not to sign an employee noncompete. I’ll cover those in another post. For now, I’ll just say that we should normalize saying “no” to employee noncompetes. There are exceptions, of course. Exception no. 1: It was part of the deal The first exception is when a noncompete was part of your deal. If the terms of the job offer included a noncompete, then it’s fair for the employer to include a noncompete in your employment agreement (sort of). Even then, it […]

You know that feeling when you call the customer service line and an automated voice, says “press 1 if you’re calling about a new application, press 2 if you’re calling in response to a letter you received, press 3 if . . .” “I’m not calling about any of those things,” you shout, to no one in particular. “I just want to talk to a real person!” You just want to explain your specific situation. That’s what it feels like when you’re trying to explain to a judge why the Pattern Jury Charge (PJC) question doesn’t work for your particular […]

Like my man Cole Porter said, in olden days a glimpse of stocking, was looked on as something shocking, now Heaven knows . . . anything goes. Especially when a company sues a former employee who took documents containing the company’s alleged “trade secrets.” In a case like that, can the company get a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring the employee not to use the documents? Can the judge also make the employee immediately “return” the documents to the company? After handling cases like this for over a decade, I can tell you the practical answer is simple: in a […]