Fifteenth Court of Appeals Decision – Tuesday, July 14, 2026
No. 15-25-0025CV In re Frank Jackson, Relator. An Original Proceeding in Mandamus, Business Court Division 11B [25-BC-11B-0032]
[Brister, Author, with Field and Farris]
Civil case – Attorney Immunity Defense.
Background. Norman Barras served as CEO of the The Reynolds and Reynolds Company (Reynolds) under a ten-year employment agreement providing him $350 million in compensation if he was terminated without cause. After the death of Bob Brockman, the company’s founder, his wife, Dorothy Brockman, took over control of the UCS/Reynolds enterprise and installed Frank Jackson, Brockman’s former attorney, at Reynolds’s headquarters. In May 2025, Reynolds terminated Barras for what it contended was “cause,” citing an investigation into financial misdealings; the termination letter identified Jackson as “General Counsel of the Company.” Barras sued Reynolds for breach of contract and Jackson for tortious interference in the Harris County court. After the case was removed to the Business Court, Jackson asserted attorney immunity in a Rule 91a motion to dismiss the tortious interference claim against him; he argued the claim had no basis in law because it sought to hold him liable for “core attorney conduct,” pointing out that Barras’s initial petition and amended petition alleged he served as “general counsel of UCS,” Reynolds’s parent company. Barras filed a second amended petition deleting the references to Jackson as general counsel, describing him instead as the company’s “business advisor,” and adding a host of allegations concerning actions he took in the company’s operations that had “little or nothing to do with providing legal advice” (such as involvement in investments, operational decisions, tech, and product management). The Business Court denied the motion to dismiss, and Jackson filed this Petition for a Writ of Mandamus in the Fifteenth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Issues. (1) Whether the Business Court abused its discretion in denying Jackson’s Rule 91a motion to dismiss based on the attorney-immunity defense; and (2) whether Jackson lacked an adequate remedy by appeal. Answers – YES and YES.
Discussion.
(1) The attorney-immunity defense turns not on the actual advice given (to determine which would required piercing privilege) but on whether the challenged conduct is “the kind of conduct” attorneys undertake in discharging their professions duties to a client. Here, Barras’s own pleadings – including his counsel’s concession that Jackson served as general counsel to UCS and that Dorothy Brockman was Reynolds’s ultimate owner – established an attorney-client relationship under Texas rule of Evidence 503. While Barras alleged Jackson performed various non-legal business functions, none of those allegations related to the specific conduct actually challenged – advice concerning Barras’s termination. Advising a multi-billion dollar client on terminating a CEO who would potentially be owed $350 million, is quintessential lawyerly conduct, regardless of Jackson’s possible self-interest in the outcome. The court also rejects the argument that relabeling Jackson as a “business advisor” through amended pleadings could defeat attorney immunity absent factual allegations that his termination-related advice was “entirely foreign” to his attorney duties.
(2) Because the tortious interference claim has no basis in law, requiring Jackson to litigate the matter through trial would defeat the substantive right to immunity from suit, and appeal is not an adequate remedy. The trial court abused its discretion in denying Jackson’s Rule 91a motion to dismiss. and the writ is conditionally granted with directions to dismiss Jackson from the suit.
Judge Farris, dissenting, concluding the live pleadings include many allegations aimed at showing Jackson’s alleged interference occurred not while he was acting as an attorney in a “lawyerly capacity,” but while he was acting as a general business advisor who happened to have a law license; as such, he was not entitled to Rule 91a dismissal under the attorney-immunity doctrine.