In a Texas Lawyer article exploring how Southwest Airlines has changed the legal landscape in Texas, Houston partner Charles “Chip” L. Babcock discussed his long history with the airline as cases took him around the state.

“I had both Dallas and Houston cases. Frankly, I couldn’t have done it without Southwest Airlines,” he said.

One case that came to mind was Chip’s representation of a Dallas Times Herald reporter who was covering the trial of Fort Worth millionaire T. Cullen Davis on a murder-for-hire charge involving his estranged wife and the judge who oversaw their divorce. The newspaper called Chip because the reporter had been subpoenaed to testify at the trial, which would preclude her from being in the courtroom to cover the trial.

“I whipped up a motion to quash the subpoena and got on Southwest out of Dallas,” he said. “I couldn’t have gotten to the hearing except for Southwest Airlines.”

To read the article, see Texas Lawyer’s “The Southwest Effect: How the Airline Changed the Legal Landscape in Texas.”

Chip’s practice experience includes bet-the-company litigation, First Amendment litigation, commercial litigation, intellectual property litigation, government investigations, media litigation, and appellate litigation. Chip has represented individuals such as Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, and Dr. Phil McGraw. His corporate clients have included ORIX USA, Celanese Corp, Fox News Network, CNN, Google, CBS Television Studios, Vantage Drilling International, Warner Brothers Pictures, New Line Cinema, 3M Corporation, and OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. In addition to receiving the Ronald D. Secrest Outstanding Trial Lawyer Award from the Texas Bar Foundation, Chip has been named a “25 Greatest Texas Lawyer of the Past Quarter Century” by Texas Lawyer and a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.