Fifth Circuit Slams Texas Lawyers Over ‘Highly Improper’ Attacks

Two trial lawyers from Texas were chastised by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for launching “a barrage of personal attacks” against opposing counsel in a long-running fraud case.

The three-judge panel found in a Friday ruling that the defendants’ counsels’ closing argument “irreparably prejudiced the fairness of the trial,” spurring the need for a new trial in a case that’s already bounced back and forth between various district-level and appellate courts for a quarter-century.

Stephen Khoury of Dallas and C. Gregory Shamoun, who practices in Farmers Branch, Texas, “employed nearly every type of improper argument identified ...