AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ Joe Jamail, a swashbuckling trial lawyer who toppled Texaco in court and so lavished the University of Texas with donations that his name adorns its football field, has died at age 90.
UT President Gregory Fenves said via Twitter Wednesday that the university “lost a great friend.”
Jamail’s Houston law firm didn’t immediately return phone messages. But The Austin American Statesman reported the cause of death as complications from pneumonia.
Known for peppering legal proceedings with vulgarities, Jamail represented Pennzoil in a dispute with Texaco.
He won a colossal $10.5 billion verdict in 1987 that drove Texaco into bankruptcy. A jury found the firm interfered with Pennzoil’s plans to acquire Getty Oil.
Former Secretary of State James Baker called Jamail “one of the finest attorneys the world has ever known.”