Herd Dispute Resolution, LLC

Snapchat is now the last app standing, left to face the Los Angeles jury alone next week in the latest teen social media addiction trial.

TikTok, YouTube, and, last week, Meta have all settled.

If your child has struggled with social media use, this case matters for you. We explain what’s happening, and what Texas families should keep in mind.📱⚖️

Snapchat Stands Alone in Teen Social Media Addiction Trial - Herd Law Firm One by one, TikTok, YouTube and now Meta settled out of Los Angeles’s latest social media addiction trial, leaving Snap alone at the defense table. With a $25 billion New Mexico penalty against Meta also on the books, here is what to watch. November 2, 2026 · By Charles F. Herd

Nine workers — including a 17-year-old — died recently dismantling a retired LNG carrier at a Bangladeshi shipbreaking yard the maritime world had certified as safely “green.” Deadly gases overwhelmed them in a ballast tank no one had thought to test.

It reads like a distant-shore tragedy. It isn’t. The U.S. shipbreaking industry is centered on the Gulf, at the Port of Brownsville — and the men who take our ships apart do the same dangerous work. The difference is the law that protects the workers. Our new post breaks down what U.S. law requires before anyone enters a ship’s tank, and what it offers a family when things go wrong.

Certified Safe? Nine Shipbreaking Deaths Reveal Laws Guarding Gulf Coast Yard Workers - Herd Law Firm Nine men died breaking apart a retired gas carrier at a South Asian yard the world had certified as “green.” The tragedy unfolded an ocean away — but the same work is done every day on the Texas coast, where the law asks a great deal more before anyone climbs into a tank.

America has opened the U.S. Gulf sea floor for business — deep-sea mining, carbon storage, offshore nuclear. But what matters for the people doing the job is: however exotic the cargo, the maritime laws that protect them hasn’t changed, including the Jones Act, seaworthiness, maintenance and cure, and more.
Our newest post breaks it down in plain English — and why this sale reaches all the way to the Texas Gulf Coast. 🌊

Pacific Deep-Sea Mining and the Next Offshore Frontier - Herd Law Firm Washington has taken another step toward the first deep-sea mineral lease sales in United States waters — one part of a push to open the ocean floor for commercial use, and a whole slate of offshore frontiers. Though while the frontier fairly new, the workers and the laws that protect them are not...

Picture yourself as one of 26 crew members on a ship. Foreign Armed authorities board, accuse you of crimes you did not commit, and send you to jail in another country. Nine terrifying months pass before you go home to your loved ones.

That happened to the crew of the M/T Heroic Idun. In May 2026, an international tribunal ruled that it never should have, awarding a record $14 M award!

A ship on the high seas answers only to the nation whose flag she flies.
In this post, we explain what flag-state jurisdiction means, where anti-piracy powers stop, and why this ruling matters to every mariner.

Answering Only to the Flag and the Record $14 Million Ruling Behind It - Herd Law Firm Another in our series on the legal “lines in the water”. When a navy forced an innocent tanker into port from waters belonging to neither of them, an international court answered with its largest damages award ever, and a reminder that on the open sea a ship answers to her flag alone.

📅 On October 28, Meta and Snap go before a Los Angeles jury in the latest social media teen-harm trial. Our update post covers:
✔️ Meta’s past settlements with U.S. states, totaling about $17 billion
✔️ Texas’s own $1 billion+ deal and the new access limits for teens
✔️ Jury verdicts already handed down
✔️ Where the settlement money is going, and why it doesn’t go to families
✔️ What this means for families and their claims!

The Status of Social Media Teen-Harm: Where Legal Cases Stand this Fall and What Meta’s Billion-Dollar Texas Deal Means for Texas Families - Herd Law Firm Since late August, Meta has agreed to pay the states roughly $17 billion, meanwhile Texas has secured more than $1 billion of its own, and Mark Zuckerberg has been ordered back to a Los Angeles witness stand. Here is where the fight over “addictive-by-design” platforms stands — and

When the M/V Dali destroyed Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge, most focus was on that one ship. The U.S. Coast Guard did something more: they asked, where else could this happen?
A new Board of Inquiry report on eleven major ports Houston/Galveston included), found that American bridges and channels are increasingly outmatched by the massive size and power of modern vessels.
Bridge allisions such as the M/V Dali's were the most-cited worst-case scenario, named at eight of the ports studied. Here we break down the findings, the recommendations, and why they matter. 🌉

When the Ships Outgrow the Bridge - Herd Law Firm After the Francis Scott Key Bridge fell, the Coast Guard turned the investigation around and asked a harder question — not only what went wrong in Baltimore, but where else it could happen. Its answer names eleven ports, Houston and Galveston among them, and warns that the nation’s bridges and c...

No lights, no radio. Sandbag barricades. And a 1-in-20 chance of being hit.

That’s how tankers are crossing the Strait of Hormuz, and the toll is mounting:
⚓ At least 12 oil and gas tankers hit in a single week (Reuters)
⚓ 12 of 19 crew injured aboard the On Peace
⚓ 8 U.S. Marines hurt in a previously undisclosed missile strike
⚓ 80 verified attacks and at least 22 seafarers killed since February (IMO)

Hazard pay may buy a crew’s willingness to go, but it doesn’t buy an owner’s way out of the duty to warn, protect, and care for them. Here’s what U.S. and international maritime law requires of the people sending mariners into the strait.

From Policy to Practice, Hormuz Under Fire - Herd Law Firm A tanker with 19 crew aboard was struck off Oman this week, the latest in a run of attacks on merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Through it all, the oil keeps moving, carried by crews running without lights or radio for hazard pay. Their experience tests what the law owes the people sent

After Baltimore's catastrophic Key Bridge collapse, most eyes were on the obvious culprit: the M/V Dali. 🚢 The U.S. Coast Guard turned the investigation around and instead asked: where else could this happen? Their conclusion: many of the nation’s busiest bridges and channels increasingly and dangerously outmatched by the size of modern vessels. Our post breaks down the findings, the twenty recommendations, and why they matter to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

When the Ships Outgrow the Bridge - Herd Law Firm After the Francis Scott Key Bridge fell, the Coast Guard turned the investigation around and asked a harder question — not only what went wrong in Baltimore, but where else it could happen. Its answer names eleven ports, Houston and Galveston among them, and warns that the nation’s bridges and c...

Did you know only about 3% of personal injury cases never go to trial? The vast majority are resolved outside of court through settlement agreements. ⚖
So, if your case is very likely to settle, then the REAL questions are:
1) how long will it take/what will it cost to get there?
2) how much leverage will you lose along the way?
Often, the fastest path to a fair recovery often isn't in the courtroom, but a mediated negotiating table. Our latest post explains how Texas mediation works and how to use it well.

The Art of the Parley: A Mediation Guide to Settling Smarter in Texas - Herd Law Firm Texas built one of the busiest mediation systems in the country on a single, sensible idea: it is cheaper, faster, and kinder to settle a dispute than to fight it to the end. For an injured party, three choices decide how well that system works — whether to go,