It's been a busy couple of weeks out of the office, but I'm back in catching up on recent developments in the Eastern District.
Week before last was the State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting in Fort Worth, at which I handed off my duties as treasurer for the Litigation Section of the bar to Christy Amuny of Beaumont (who is thoroughly and understandably irritated at the development), and started new ones as vice chair of the Litigation Section and editor of the board of editors of the Texas Bar Journal.
On the way home Saturday morning I stopped off in Irving, where I had the pleasure of presenting a paper, Patent Litigation in the Eastern District of Texas: Past, Present and Future to the Intellectual Property Law Section of the Oklahoma Bar Association at their 2010 midyear meeting. Since the Texas Bar's Litigation Section seems to have half our meetings in New Mexico, it was not a surprise that the Oklahoma IP law section meets in Texas every so often. Reminded me of growing up in Marshall - we went to Longview for fun, but the Longview kids went to Tyler, and the Tyler kids to Dallas, while (paradoxically) the Waskom and Jefferson kids kids were coming to Marshall, and the Harleton kids were headed for Jefferson. Greener pastures, I guess.
The next day my wife Jamie and I were off with our three boys to Corpus Christi, where she was attending classes for her job as county treasurer here in Harrison County. (She is up for reelection to her fifth term this fall, but for the first time in twelve years she is running unopposed, so no need to spend the summer raising campaign funds for her this year). All kids need the summer road trip to the beach with hot, irritated, frazzled parents, and we did our best, but with back seat DVD players and Nintendo DSIs - we didn't hear a peep from them. Well, until we discovered we'd only packed one charger for three DSes - that was a late night run into the Walmart in Wharton, Texas to resupply. Corpus was a good trip, as I got to take my boys to see the museum carrier Lexington,
which was one of the class I wrote my first book Essex Class Carriers in action about (what, you thought all I did was blog about federal court?). Another highlight was lunch at my friend Corpus lawyer Kathy Snapka's family's restaurant, Snapka's, complete with attorney-made malts and shakes.
(Best tacos and onion rings on the planet).
Back into the office in Marshall this week for our last full week in the South Washington offices as next week Siebman, Burg, Phillips & Smith LLP will be officially relocating its Marshall offices to our new space in the historic old Hub Shoe Store building in downtown Marshall (complete with balcony windows for my three boys to look out from their after-school work room upstairs - I'll post more on the fun little details later).
Notice I didn't say that the offices will be complete - just that we'll be moving in there next week. Our space will be completed within a few days, I expect, but the office suite for visiting trial teams will probably take a few weeks longer. But effective July 1, the new address and contact information for my office (including a new fax number, I note) will be:
Siebman, Burg, Phillips & Smith LLP,
113 East Austin, Marshall, Texas 75670
(903) 938-8900 (office); (903) 472-4301 (fax)
E-mail