Texas Lawyer Reports on Trey Cox’s Address to State Bar of Texas’ Annual Meeting on Greenpeace Trial
In the Media | June 17, 2026
Texas Lawyer
Texas Lawyer [PDF] reported on remarks made by partner Trey Cox (Dallas and Houston) at the State Bar of Texas annual meeting on June 12, 2026. Trey spoke about Gibson Dunn’s successful representation of Energy Transfer in its case against Greenpeace over protests that delayed the Dakota Access Pipeline.
In his speech, Trey summarized the true value of a closing argument. “By the time you stand up to present at closing, the people on the jury have already made a tentative decision,” he said. “Some people want to call it a closing argument, I actually prefer summation, because what you are doing is you are summing up the evidence, and you are trying to teach your friendly jurors how to argue with your unfriendly jurors in the real final argument, which takes place back in the jury room.”
The winning strategy in the Greenpeace trial, Trey said, was the ability to tie acts of sabotage, shown in police reports and protest photos, directly to Greenpeace’s internal emails, training records, and reimbursement documents.
“You can’t just have them get arrested,” Trey said. “You have to connect the dots and take it from an individual action all the way back to Greenpeace.”