Judge Rules Against Fulbright Lawyer Seeking Part of Friend’s Estate

A medical malpractice lawyer at Fulbright & Jaworski wasn’t entitled to a portion of the estate of her late companion, Henry J.N. Taub, a Houston area judge has found.

The judge’s findings of fact left the lawyer, Mary-Ellen Conway, without the $150,000 in annual payments that she had sought from the estate, the Houston Chronicle reports. The court published the findings on the day the case settled “for its nuisance value,” according to the lawyer for Taub’s children, quoted in a press release.

Conway had claimed she was married to Taub and she had a written codicil to his will that gave her the annual allowance, a horse farm, medical and nursing home care, and a brass sculpture of Taub, the Houston Chronicle says. But Harris County Probate Judge Kathy Stone said there was no codicil, and Conway never married or lived with Taub. A 1987 written agreement providing that Conway and Taub were not married was still in force, Stone said.

The Chronicle says Conway, a former TV news medical reporter, “was often seen on Taub's arm at society functions.”

Hat tip to the Am Law Daily.