McGuireWoods Attorneys Win Prestigious Burton Award for Distinguished Legal Writing

April 6, 2023

McGuireWoods Washington, D.C., partner Mike Andrews, Dallas associate Paul Chappell and Houston associate Miles Indest will be honored with the legal industry’s premier writing award for their analysis of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The authors won Law360’s Distinguished Legal Writing Award, presented by the Burton Awards, a national nonprofit program run in association with the Library of Congress, for their article, “High Court’s Tribal Ruling May Enable More Gambling in Texas,” published by Law360 on June 23, 2022. Only 25 articles from entries submitted by the nation’s 1,000 largest law firms are honored with Burton Awards.

The article assessed the impact of the June 15, 2022, decision in Ysleta del Sur Pueblo v. Texas, in which the high court ruled that Texas could not ban the state’s three federally recognized tribes from operating electronic bingo games on tribal lands. With this groundbreaking ruling in their favor, Native American tribes may push even harder to obtain the right to offer casino-style games and sports betting on their Texas reservations, the authors wrote.

Andrews, also a senior vice president with McGuireWoods Consulting, leads policy work on matters impacting Native American tribes, drawing on his experience as a former staff director and chief counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Indest is a member of the firm’s Business & Securities Litigation Department and Chappell is a member of the Labor & Employment Department.

McGuireWoods Houston office managing partner Yasser Madriz and associate Ryan Frankel and McGuireWoods Consulting senior vice president and director Holly Deshields of Austin also contributed to the article.

The Burton Awards are funded by the Burton Foundation, a nonprofit academic initiative that rewards excellence in the legal profession. The awards were established to honor the finest accomplishments in the law, including writing, reform, public service and public interest, regulatory innovation and lifetime achievements.

The winners will be honored at a June 12, 2023, ceremony at the National Portrait Gallery in D.C. The awards ceremony, now in its 24th year, will be followed by a gala reception, dinner, and performance by comedian and late-night talk show host Seth Meyers.