3 Texas Lawyers Share Spotlight in Texaco Case : Texaco’s Lawyer

Solomon Casseb Jr., Richard B. Miller and Joseph Jamail Jr. have been known in South Texas for years as prominent lawyers, moving in important social and political circles.

But now they are suddenly thrust onto the national stage, thanks to the biggest civil case in U.S. history--Pennzoil vs. Texaco.

Until three weeks ago, the 23-month-long legal dispute over Houston-based Pennzoil’s contention that Texaco improperly lured Getty Oil out of a merger deal last year drew little attention. Presiding Judge Casseb, lead Texaco lawyer Miller and Pennzoil lawyer Jamail labored with little notice in a tiny Houston courtroom.

But on Nov. 21, a jury sided with Pennzoil and awarded it $7.53 billion in actual damages and another $3 billion in punitive damages, a sum so huge that giant Texaco has been forced to consider bankruptcy while it appeals the decision.

These are the three men who were the key courtroom figures in this historic case.

The man tapped to lead Texaco’s defense almost turned down the biggest case of his career.

Richard B. Miller had started his own firm only five months before, having left his job as chief trial lawyer at Houston’s largest law firm and Pennzoil’s longtime outside counsel, Baker & Botts, after 31 years. He had friends at both Pennzoil and Baker & Botts and had worked closely with John Jeffers and G. Irvin Terrell, the two young lawyers credited with the key strategic move of the Texaco-Pennzoil trial--moving the case from Delaware to Texas.

He also had a nagging feeling that the case could “turn out to be unpleasant.”

In the end, however, the promised importance of the case won him over. His new firm was set up to accept only cases with “a lot at stake.” Neither Texaco nor Miller will say how much he is being paid to represent the company. But only much later did Miller learn just how high the stakes were.

Miller, 59, put six of his fledgling Houston firm’s 13 lawyers on the case and became Texaco’s lead counsel.

The Houston attorney is a balding, serious man whom the National Law Journal recently described as “cerebral and mechanical.” He grew up in Tulsa, Okla., and earned a

law degree from Harvard Law School in 1952. Baker & Botts was his first, and only, employer.

Like his counterpart on the Pennzoil team, Joseph Jamail, Miller speaks with a gentle drawl and is one of the most feared trial attorneys in Houston. The two live just a few miles apart in a swank section of Houston, and each has a son practicing law. In 1982, Miller even defended Jamail--against allegations that Jamail had slandered a man who then was a state senator. The case was eventually dropped.

In his own way, Miller is just as colorful as the flamboyant Jamail. After the jury awarded $10.53 billion in actual and punitive damages against Texaco, Miller told reporters: “I think we have to say we had our ass whipped.” And, during the trial, he told jurors that “this has got to be the first case in the history of mankind where the white knight got sued by the dragon.”

In court, he is far less folksy than Jamail but no less dramatic. Jurors always knew when he was about to ask a witness what he considered a particularly important question. He would turn on his heels and--with his back to the witness and his stare focused on the jury--ask the witness a question.

The verdict aside, his approach left jurors impressed. Several commented after the end of the case that, if they ever had to hire a lawyer, they would choose Miller.