Payola Justice: How Texas Supreme Court Justices Raise Money from Court Litigants

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Lawyers and law firms account for $3,818,125—or 42 percent—of the money that the seven justices received in contributions of $100 or more. Of this amount, the report links $3,059,914 (80 percent) to the Supreme Court docket.

The lawyers and PACs associated with the top 15 law firms that paid tribute to the seven justices contributed a total of $1,536,255, or 17 percent of the total that the justices received in contributions of $100 or more. Lawyers in these 15 firms all argued cases before the court. The court delivered 530 decisions during the period studied; Baker & Botts lawyers alone had a hand in 21 of these cases.

Vinson & Elkins is the firm that most supported the justices' political fundraising. Its lawyers and political action committee (PAC) contributed almost a quarter of a million dollars to the seven justices during the period covered by this report. Vinson & Elkins lawyers argued 12 cases before the court during the period studied.

Two other top corporate law firms, Fulbright & Jaworski and Chief Justice Phillips' former firm of Baker & Botts, cleared $160,000 each in contributions to the seven justices. During the period studied, Baker & Botts lawyers argued 21 cases before the court; Fulbright & Jaworski lawyers argued 17. The PACs and lawyers of three other defense firms contributed more than $100,000 per firm. Of these, Liddell, Sapp, Zivley, Hill & LaBoon argued three cases before the court during the period studied, while the firms of Susman Godfrey and Kelly Hart & Hallman each argued one court case.

Knowing the judge
The law firm contributions presented above count contributions by each firm's PAC as well as its lawyers. The contributions presented below show the individual lawyers who have contributed the most money. Ten attorneys gave more than $10,000 apiece to the seven justices. Four of the top five individual contributors are name partners of their firms. Apparently, when power lawyers appear in court, they know that it helps to know the law—and it helps to know the judge.

During the Texas Supreme Court scandal of a decade ago, former Chief Justice Jack Pope criticized six fellow justices for attending a ball thrown by Corpus Christi trial lawyer Bill Edwards, who had just won an important Supreme Court case. "Supreme Court judges need to be careful with all attorneys, because if they don't have a case before you, they either had one or hope to get one," Pope said. "Supreme Court justices do not "need the help of lawyers [with cases before the court] except for what they put in written briefs," Pope added.¹³

A Dallas Times Herald study helped fuel the court scandal in 1987 when it found that just eight lawyers and law firms contributed 18 percent of the money justices raised over the previous 10 years¹⁴. This study finds that lawyers and law firms—many with cases before the court—contributed 42 percent of the $9.2 million raised in the most recent election cycles of the seven justices studied here.

In a bizarre January 22, 1998 decision, the court appeared to pay back these major funders. The court majority (Justices Enoch, Gonzalez, Owen, Baker and Hankinson) held in Bohatch v. Butler & Binion that no legal barriers prevent a law firm from firing a partner who complains about a client being over billed. Justices Phillips and Spector dissented, arguing that the ruling wrongly suggests that "the rules of professional responsibility are subordinate to a law firm's other interests." Justice Abbott recused himself since the case involved the law firm he practiced with before joining the court.¹⁵

One disturbing court trend is that it is becoming increasingly rare for the public to know how individual justices weighed in on cases such as Bohatch v. Butler & Binion. A July 1997 Texas Citizen Action study, "The Texas Supreme Court in 1996-97," found that, for two years running, the court has issued more per curiam opinions than signed ones. In a per curiam, a court majority backs an anonymously written opinion, disagreeing justices fail to write dissents and the voting records of individual justices are kept secret. For justices who raise huge sums of money from parties who have business before the court, per curiam decisions offer a way to vote for financial backers without the accountability that an on-the-record vote imposes.

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