On May 9, 2025, the Texas Supreme Court issued its opinion in Michael A. Pohl, et al v. Mark Kentrell Cheatham, Sr. et al, 2025 Tex. Lexis 379 (Tex. 2025), on whether Texas’s civil barratry statute, Texas Government Code Section 82.0651, applies to the solicitation of a legal-services contract with an out-of-state client through prohibited barratry when the core conduct occurred outside of Texas. Based on Texas’s presumption that its statutes do not apply extraterritorially, the Court concluded that Section 82.0651(a) did not extend to claims by the non-resident plaintiffs because the conduct alleged – the solicitation of a legal-services contract through illegal barratry – occurred outside Texas. 

Enacted in 2011, Section 82.0651 allows a client to bring a civil action to void a contract for legal services that was procured as a result of conduct violating Texas…