ContractKeys to the court house 

The contingent-fee option enables a claimant who has a valuable claim but can't afford hourly fees to hire a lawyer. He pays with a promise to share his recovery with the lawyer in return for the lawyer's sharing the many risks of pursuing a claim — including the risk of

A contract dispute over building a child-development center at Fort Hood, in central Texas, today spawned a ruling that will bring joy to firms that put forum-choice clauses in their contracts in hopes of making lawsuits too costly to pursue.

The agreement between Atlantic Marine Construction Company and J-Crew Management, Inc., stated that all disputes between the

The Federal Circuit today ruled that the Eastern District of Texas has the wrong idea about whether Rule 20(a) lets plaintiffs sue a bunch of defendants in one patent infringement case simply because they all infringed the same patents.

You have to show something more, it held — such as that the defendants somehow acted

Do you think of Chicago as an oil and gas town? Dallas, yes; Houston, for sure; New Orleans, uh-huh; maybe Bismarck, North Dakota (for the shale gas); and perhaps even New York (because of trading oil futures on the NYMEX).

Chicago? Meh.

But wait up. Today Judge Richard Posner wrote about oil and gas leases.

You know that word choice matters. Twain's lightning versus lightning bug comes to mind.

What about spelling? Well, the tumult over a key part of a way to complete a sideways oil and gas well shows that spelling matters too.

The Supreme Court of Texas explains the process thus:

As in other shale formations, wells