Practice Areas
  • Business Problems & Transactions
  • Litigation
  • Personal Injury
  • Commercial Real Estate
  • Oil and Gas
  • Business Finance
  • Labor & Employment
  • Eminent Domain
  • Estate Planning and Probate
  • Business Exit Planning
  • Toxic and Mass Tort
  • Local Government
  • White Collar Defense

Business Problems and Transactions

  • Acquisitions, sales, and financing of business enterprises and significant assets
  • Employment and personnel matters
  • Entity organization, enterprise structure, and planning
  • Business succession and exit planning
  • Contracts, business forms, licenses, easements, and leases for equipment and premises
  • Problems among owners
  • Commercial disputes and business litigation
  • Collecting money owed, and enforcing creditors rights
  • Trademark registration and protection, competition, and goodwill protection issues

The firm’s clients include many different and varied enterprises, large and small. We help businesses and business people with both the everyday and the extraordinary issues that confront modern business, including:

Litigation

By reviewing the specific litigation areas, you can see that our firm has tried as lead counsel scores of cases to juries as well as assisted as local counsel in many more.  That experience also allows out firm to make extensive use of alternative dispute resolution techniques, including mediation and arbitration.  In order to litigate any case successfully, you must know where you are and who your audience is. Our firm can certainly help you with this part of South Texas. Our firm’s experience includes the following types of cases:

  • Negligence
  • Professional Negligence
  • Toxic Tort
  • Oil and Gas
  • Gender Discrimination
  • National Origin Discrimination
  • Race Discrimination
  • Worker’s Compensation Retaliation
  • Deceptive Trade Practices
  • Will Contests
  • Construction


Representative Cases:

  • Lead counsel for a major chemical company in a plant explosion with over 1100 plaintiffs
  • Defended Fortune 100 company on claims of groundwater contamination with over 1200 plaintiffs
  • Lead trial attorney in large dollar estate against claim of common law marriage
  • Defended private causes of action in one of the nation’s largest superfund sites
  • Scores of successful jury verdicts for insureds and insurers
  • Trial counsel in multiple death and personal injury  medical malpractice cases for hospitals, physicians, and nurses
  • Lead trial attorney in defense of six cases with six jury verdicts of no discrimination in state and federal court
  • Defended landowners in maritime treasure claim


Representative Clients:

Alcoa, Inc.; The Dow Chemical Company; Reynolds Metals Company; Specialty Products, Inc.; State Farm Insurance Company; Texas Medical Liability Trust; Union Carbide Corporation; Wells Fargo; DCP Sandhills Pipeline, LLC; Enterprise Texas Pipeline, LLC; ETC Texas Pipeline, LLC; HSC Pipeline Partnership, LLC; Kinder Morgan Crude and Condensate, LLC

Personal Injury

Personal Injury claims have long been a central focus of litigation in South Texas, and our firm has handled everything from low-impact, non-specific injury car wreck cases to severe injury and death cases from industrial accidents.  We have tried numerous personal injury cases to successful jury verdicts and are the primary counsel for two of the largest international companies with industrial facilities in our region. Additionally, we regularly serve as local counsel in all types of personal injury litigation.  Our firm also serves the needs of the insurance industry. We routinely provide such clients with the following services:

  • Traditional defense litigation
  • Bad faith, insurance code violations, and other first party litigation
  • Litigation related to malpractice defense and employment matters

Representative Cases:

  • Scores of successful jury verdicts for insureds and insurers
  • Defense of industrial accidents for chemical, manufacturing and energy companies
  • Trial counsel in multiple death and personal injury medical malpractice cases for hospitals, physicians, and nurses

Representative Clients:

Alcoa Inc., American National Property and Casualty, The Dow Chemical Company, Reynolds Metals Company, Specialty Products, Inc., State Farm Insurance Company, Texas Medical Liability Trust, and Union Carbide Corporation

Commercial Real Estate

The firm’s real estate clients include industrial plant owners, business premises owners, mortgagors, mortgagees, developers, commercial lessees and lessors, agricultural concerns, individuals, partnerships and governmental entities.  Our experience covers the spectrum of real estate transactions, from assisting with due diligence in making the decision to purchase, to negotiating the financing and closing the deal.  We handle:

  • Real estate financing, development, and exchange transactions
  • Property purchases and disposals
  • Commercial, industrial, agricultural, and recreational leasing transactions
  • Real estate partition, boundary, title, and possession disputes
  • Eminent domain litigation, both for condemnees and condemnor
  • Environmental issues and disputes

Oil and Gas

The energy industry is a huge part of the South Texas economy. We have represented large and small landowners in dealing with oil and gas companies. Our representation has ranged from negotiating leases to litigation involving major oil and gas fields for both the landowners and energy companies.  We represent clients in connection with:

  • Leasing transactions
  • Seismic and exploration agreements
  • Investor business and transaction issues
  • Lease litigation
  • Employment and human resource issues, including executive employment separation, and employment litigation in federal and state court
  • Entity organization, enterprise restructure and planning
  • Contracts and business forms, technology agreements, licensing and joint operating agreements
  • Commercial disputes and business litigation
  • Trademark registration, competition and good protection issues
  • Estate and business planning
  • Water regulatory, development and transportation issues

Representative Litigation:

  • After litigation in state and federal court for our landowner client, an oil and gas company released one of the largest mineral leases in South Texas.
  • Tried cessation of production case to a successful jury verdict for an energy company.
  • Tried pipeline condemnation to commissioners.
  • Negotiation of numerous mineral leases and seismic agreements.

Business Finance

Our firm represents clients seeking to extend credit as well as those seeking to obtain it. With a long history and experience of representing banks and financial institutions, the firm’s professionals possess uncommon insight when it comes to structuring and negotiating the terms of commercial financing transactions, helping our clients communicate with potential financing parties on a level that gives the best assurance of a positive outcome.   The firm also has extensive experience representing both lenders and borrowers after the deal is done and in those circumstances where things have not gone as planned or when change is needed or inevitable. We also work with corporate trustees and fiduciaries in many different contexts, including litigation and dispute resolution.

 

We provide banks, financial institutions, businesses and investors with:

  • Negotiating and structuring commercial and secured lending transactions
  • Documenting secured transactions, and other corporate financing arrangements
  • Real estate mortgage loan negotiation, documentation, and structuring
  • Modifications, work out negotiations, foreclosure, and collection services

Business Finance

Our attorneys provide advice, review policies and represent clients in all types of labor and employment related matters. When disputes are not resolved in the administrative phase, our attorneys represent our clients in state and federal courts and in private arbitration proceedings. We have also defended actions involving multiple plaintiffs, including actions in which the EEOC is a party.

 

Our experience also extends to claims for interference with contracts and prospective contracts, and breach of contract brought in the employment context.

 

Our attorneys have represented clients in employment related matters in such industries as petroleum, petrochemical, pipeline, banking, healthcare and utility. Our firm represents clients with matters pertaining to:

 

Representative Cases:

  • Lead trial attorney in defense of six cases with six jury verdicts of no discrimination in State and Federal Court
  • Lead trial attorney in defense of three Worker’s Compensation retaliation cases with jury finding of no retaliation
  • Pretrial dismissal of national origin discrimination lawsuit for international company
  • Dismissal of gender discrimination and sexual harassment claims against individual supervisor within 30 days of being retained in EEOC and individual plaintiff cases against multi-national corporation
  • Prosecuted and defended covenants not to compete lawsuits, with successful results after injunction hearing

Representative Clients:

Alcoa Inc., Union Carbide Corporation, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A, Victoria Eye Center, P.A, Fastenal Company

 

 

Eminent Domain

Our firm represents companies obtaining hundred of miles of pipeline easement serving the Eagle Ford Shale. We also represent landowners in eminent domain cases in areas such as electric easements and government taking.

 

Representative Clients:

DCP Sandhills Pipeline, LLC; Enterprise Texas Pipeline, LLC; ETC Texas Pipeline, LLC; HSC Pipeline Partnership, LLC; Kinder Morgan Crude and Condensate, LLC.

 

Estate Planning and Probate

We assist our clients in the preparation of wills, powers of attorney, and other estate and disability planning documents. Our firm is also experienced in lawsuits involving will contests and other types of probate litigation. We routinely assist our clients with the following:

 

  • Declaration of heirship proceedings
  • Estate and probate litigation
  • Estate planning and administration (probating wills, muniment of title proceedings, assisting executors or administrators, and managing estates)
  • Family limited partnerships
  • Powers of attorney and advance directives
  • Wills and statutory powers of attorney

Representative Cases:

  • Lead trial counsel in claim against estate of common law marriage (jury verdict in favor of our client)
  • Lead or co-counsel in three partition lawsuits involving three large, historic South Texas ranches

Business Exit Planning

Everyone who has a business is going leave it at some time. The key is leaving on your own terms. Walker Keeling can help you determine what you want and need from the transition out of your business, and help you plan for and reach those goals. The firm’s professionals can help you:

 

  • Prioritize your interests and determine a path for successfully leaving your business
  • Evaluate alternatives to selling the business as a means of making your exit
  • Identify challenges to meeting your goals and plan to manage them
  • Assess and enhance your business’s ability to sustain your chosen path and reach your goals
  • Handle the exit transaction and implement your plan

Toxic and Mass Tort

Our firm has defended toxic tort matters for some of the largest companies in the country.  We have appeared in claims involving single plaintiffs and matters where entire communities have filed suit against our clients.  We are experienced in all areas of toxic and mass tort, including litigation involving:

 

  • Benzene
  • Asbestos
  • Silicosis
  • Ground water contamination
  • Coal tar pitch
  • TCE
  • Welding fumes
  • Mercury

Representative Cases:

  • Defended private causes of action in one of the nation’s largest superfund sites
  • Defended major chemical company on a plant explosion with over 1100 plaintiffs
  • Defended Fortune 100 company on claims of ground water contamination with over 1200 plaintiffs
  • Defended two major industrial companies against allegations of benzene exposure

Representative Clients:

Lead counsel: Alcoa Inc., The Dow Chemical Company, Reynolds Metals Company, Seadrift Coke Company, Specialty Products, Inc., and Union Carbide Corporation

 

Local counsel: Numerous corporations for cases in South Texas

 

Local Government

Our firm represents municipalities and other governmental entities, such as municipal utility districts and water control and improvement districts, by providing the following services:

 

  • Governance advice (including Open Meetings Act issues, procedures, rules, and regulations)
  • Condemnation issues and proceedings
  • Regulatory compliance (for both statutory and governmental agencies)
  • Contract review and negotiation (for banking services, personnel or independent contractors, and water supply construction)
  • Financing, including financing from state agencies
  • Collections
  • Formation/creation
  • Real Estate issues, including easements and right-of-ways
  • Compliance issues, including bond ordinances, Texas Public Information Act, and agreements with other local governments
  • Litigation
  • Employee policy handbooks and employment issues
  • Election procedures