Federal Judge Wants Ted Boutrous To Make Out With Plaintiff's Counsel In Front Of The Alamo... And That's Not Necessarily The Most Insane Part Of This Order

Are there a bunch of tangential visual aides? Yep!

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Like this… except for Biglaw lawyers.

In 2013, Judge Fred Biery penned a masterful work of double entendre, cramming sexual innuendo into a seven-page opinion about strip clubs. He then turned around and bemoaned that modern culture was far too coarse for him, which… whatever.

Fast forward to this week, when Judge Biery filed a status conference order that one can best describe as unconventional. In the matter of Housecanary, Inc. v. Quicken Loans, with Housecanary represented by Ricardo G. Cedillo of Davis Cedillo & Mendoza Inc. and attorneys from Susman Godfrey Quicken represented by Ted Boutrous of Gibson Dunn, as well as attorneys from both Prichard Young LLP and Morganroth & Morganroth PLLC, Judge Biery has some concerns about the discovery and Texas litigation in general that he decided to share:

Although the Court expects vigorous advocacy and does not expect counsel to hold hands and sing Kumbaya, the consequences of unprofessional conduct or acerbic shrillness in the process in the pleadings can also include revocation of pro hac vice privileges, sitting in timeout in the rotunda of the courthouse and opposing counsel kissing each other on the lips in front of the Alamo with cameras present.

The only thing more terrifying than these unhinged threats is the realization that he’s lodged all of these before. In a series of footnotes, he reveals that he’s tried to get some hot litigator on litigator action going in front of the Alamo on two other occasions in the past to no avail. Back in the sepia-toned old days of Texas litigation that Judge Biery seems to appreciate so much, there were such things as “hanging judges.” I guess Judge Biery is the “kissing judge.”

As Law360 reports:

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the San Antonio litigation legal community consisted of 300 lawyers who know each other on a professional and social level, some of whom are quite capable of trying these kinds of cases and whose handshake agreements were kept, making court orders often unnecessary,” Judge Biery said.

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Don’t worry, he footnotes the opening clause to credit Star Wars.

Did this period of professional tranquility really exist? Almost assuredly not, but isn’t it pretty to think so. Certainly, the Texas legal market is now much more national than it once was, with global firms rushing into the space and the Texas market’s fixation on salary parity with New York drawing more and more attorneys from outside the Lone Star state into the area. Or, as Judge Biery put it in the first of many visual aides in his opinion:

The Judge continues “[a]s another old school San Antonio lawyer, Hobart Huson, Jr., was fond of saying ‘Texans you are guarding the wrong river.'” Is Hobart Huson Jr. related to Hobart Huson the ecstasy manufacturer? Because a healthy dose of MDMA might explain why something like this would ever make it into a published federal opinion.

But the thrust of Judge Biery’s opinion is the need to keep things in perspective when it comes to contentious litigation:

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Condensing 14 billion years into a twenty-four hour time line reveals that our ancestors showed up at about a minute before midnight, which means that our biblical three score and 10 and the time of this litigation is a nanosecond a blink of an eye.

Is there a visual aide for this? You’d better believe it!

Remember, more than one person at Gibson Dunn is billing a client for having to read this.

Do you think we can get another visual aide in this short opinion? Of course!

This is an entire page-long appendix.

But let’s get back to the real matter at hand. Judge Biery is 71 years old. Time is starting to run out on his career. Will he ever be able to realize his dream of getting litigators to kiss? At this point, we can only pray.

Judge’s Wild Order Threatens To Make Warring Attys Kiss [Law360]

Earlier: Judge Strips Gentlemen’s Club Case to Bare Facts
What The F*ck? Why This Federal Judge Won’t Curse In An Opinion

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