After a large oilfield services company went bankrupt, SHJ was hired by their reorganized debtors to represent them in both affirmative and defensive litigation with various machine vendors located across the country. The claims related to roughly $50 million in custom fabricated parts intended for use in frac equipment, with some claims turning on whether the parts contained microscopic metallurgical defects with a risk of catastrophic failure. In all, SHJ handled more than a dozen adversary proceedings along parallel schedules. This required the strategic coordination of discovery across all cases as well as the use of multi-track depositions and parallel trial preparation.

Our familiarity with bankruptcy court practice and procedure and our willingness to try cases, even with difficult facts, resulted in optimal outcomes for our clients.

Leveraging our experience handling various types of mass actions, the SHJ trial team approached the suite of cases as one interrelated problem. We forced an initial “bellwether” case to trial, secured a favorable judgment from the trial court, and used that outcome as a hammer to drive favorable settlements across the remaining docket. Throughout, our familiarity with bankruptcy court practice and procedure, particularly the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, and our willingness to try cases, even with difficult facts, resulted in optimal outcomes for our clients.