Dennis C. Burns Email & Phone Number

Bright Angel is where I have nurtured my spirit for years - before, through and after a successful law practice. It will, in time, create a broadcast realm where songs will flourish - recast as 'Canticles & Mirth':With, simply, songs of literary charm...we are about to createThe Great American Music Hour. Something as beautiful, and enduring, as the vineyards of Saint-Emilion and Tuscany. And we will build it on the fertile, forgotten terrainOf Sunday evening television. One hour to provide a linkbetween music of beauty and intelligence,and the people who have bought ourproducts, and tied their wealth to our stock.In France, a perfect armagnac is said to be the fire and soul of the countryside. So this hour of song will be ~ the “fire and soul” of music.An evening of a passion we had nearly forgotten. We will build a home for song, and we willbuild it to endure like The Prado.A place where songs hang in the air, with the early ‘Hallmark Hall of Fame’ as our model.What William Faulkner and William Shakespeare were to the ‘Hallmark Hall of Fame’,so will...(continued upon request)

Projects range from aspirational to concrete. (A few of them are highly aspirational, but all of them would make for fine entertainment - and if I cannot get to them, I hope that someone else will.)Creator/Writer/Producer:'Canticles & Mirth' - From Canterbury Lake to St. Scalia's Folly'The Lakes Above the Big Two-Hearted River' - From Stocking the Upper Lakes with Trout in the Days of the Seven Buck Lease, on through...These Days of Silver-Tongued Deviltry, Not So Mere Puffery & the Well-Paid Twaddle of Vain Fools Afoot' (original story & scripts/placeholder title)'Canticles & Mirth' ( 'A Prado for Song' )'Great Bars of the Rockies' ('A Cowboy Walks Into A Bar' - to a song, a kiss and a fistful of mystery) [Reality]'War of The Copper Kings/The Copper Kings of Montana' (in early development for stage, screen and, if a tunesmith and librettist appear...bits of opera within a story, within a greater story)''...the sun in a golden cup"/a Yeats project (in early development)'Teilhard the Transcendent' (in early development)'The Cinematographer orders "what DeGuerre is having"' ('The Mercury Visions of Louis Deguerre' - Dominic Smith's short novel)(rights not secured)Variations on Natalie Angier's 'Canon''Humbolt's Gift' (a better adaptation)God & H.V. Morton (a curious English historian)'KJR ~ Something In the Airwaves', Seattle, 05.16.66 (the release of 'Pet Sounds')...06.01.67 (the release of 'Sgt. Pepper') (original script - coming of age) AND "She wants to live in the Rockies..." (television, in episodes, summers 1968-1971)'Now That's Just Sad' (a more entertaining Sunday morning week in review)

I have been a member of the State Bar of Texas for thirty-five and counting years. After building a successful law practice in Dallas, I removed myself from active practice following eight years as counsel in the second largest property damage settlement in U.S. history. Able to pursue personal interests, I chose to forego the substantial demands and limited satisfactions of a daily legal practice.

As co-counsel for national class-action litigation involving multiple national and international oil, chemical and manufacturing companies, mass tort litigation, trials and appeals, I worked for nearly a decade to help secure more than $700 million in settlements for homeowners throughout the United States. I was charged, among counsel, with primary responsibility for communication with several thousand clients, and for the design and implementation of an unprecedented “notice” campaign, praised by the court, and continuing by my design for seven years. The settlement itself stands unique in that it:• Preserved the rights of consumers to resume litigation in the unlikely event that what became a $950 million dollar fund was exhausted• Achieved the waiver of statutes of limitations and repose for incidents occurring up to seven years prior to resolution of the litigation, and• Marked one of the most successful stands against a tide of class-action settlements that offer nominal “coupon” settlements to claimants.• A facility for the management of claims was established which provided full remediation to claimants for a span of fourteen years.• Paid and unpaid media, as well as direct correspondence, were orchestrated to reach affected urban and rural property owners.• Prominent national tort reform advocates and the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice praised the final settlement, mediated by Kenneth Fineberg in the eighth year of my involvement.• The litigation, and the corporate conduct which gave rise to it, were detailed in a ’60 Minutes’ feature available for review.• A history of the litigation is set forth in a Rand Corporation study available on-line.During roughly the same time, I litigated, mediated and arbitrated more than one hundred cases to conclusion in Dallas and surrounding counties.

East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon

Nineteen separate trips to Western, and a little in Eastern, Europe. It's the only thing I keep a tally on other than the age of my children. Updates: Twenty was Andrea’s perfect plan that had us hiking and biking through the Spanish Basque coastal trails. Twenty-one was the most gratifying, with Blake & Kieran joining Andrea & I on another remarkable Backroads trek, biking from Umbria to the sea. In Arezzo, Giorgio Vasari, an old friend of Michelangelo, left in his last years the perfect portico at Palazzo delle Logge. And there of late bartenders have crafted the perfect martini, which creates the illusion of sipping lemon while tasting olives. I know the secret, but cannot recreate it. The countryside from there was everything you could ask of Italy. Borgobrufa, the vast expanse of the valley that holds Assisi (for truffles, search Monte Subasio/Le Mandrie di San Paolo), Montefalco, back a few centuries in Gubbio, and the still sparkling waters of Pesaro. And, we finally had a full seven days to walk the old streets of Rome to near content. Here's to the very young who took us in at La Casetta a Monti. And to the way Piero di Cosimo saw Magdalene.~This is always a good place to note that I came to Dallas with about $700 and my law school debt. My father, and both of my grandfathers, were railroaders. One of the wonderful aspects of that city was what rich soil it was for young people beginning a career. It had less to do with the pols who are quick to take credit than with the nature of the people who lived and worked there.

Peripheral. Taking it in.

Finley Point, On Skidoo Bay, Flathead Lake, Montana

When I first began making more than subsistence money in the practice of law in Texas, I set aside a fund to buy land for a cabin on Flathead Lake. Some twenty years later, my wife and I built a house on Skidoo Bay that will stand for generations. Designed with Whitefish architect Duie Millette, the hand-laid rocks, stained wood shingles, roof angles, and stone paths to the water below and cherry orchard above say more about our commitment to Montana than any words I could craft. We are supporters, financially and by participation, of The Flathead Lakers and downtown Polson beautification efforts. The orchard is active, with a pleasant yield of lambert, lapin and Rainier cherries last summer, including twenty lugs that we were actually paid for. It was an early but small harvest, owing to an April freeze. This year (2014), winter came in ten waves, and the trees were late to blossom, and the bees are late to arrive. We'll know the outcome of all of that in early August. (It was sparse, and the cherries not quite as sweet.)

The phrase itself is rightly attributed to an old friend (lately a federal judge) in his youth. Insightful and articulate beyond his years, then and now. I think that I remain a lifetime member of the more structured 'Sons & Daughters of Montana Pioneers', to boot.

Here, There And Everywhere

Founder - Bright Angel Productions®When in respite from my law practice, I created a detailed model for a television program which would serve as a modern variation on the early ‘Hallmark Hall of Fame’ - albeit with what I describe as “songs of literary charm” at its heart. A structure of strategic alliances was designed whereby five companies would be able to adapt and divide Hallmark’s strategies of “four wall” sponsorship. The project was honed under the guidance of senior faculty of the American Film Institute. It is, still, a personal labor of love. By nature and design, it involves both traditional media and social media management. And moves, when at all, at a glacial pace.

I greatly enjoyed my active time there, both because I like the people who are involved, and because it facilitated a wonderful way to become familiar with the great canon of chamber music. There are a host of composers whose work in the realm is overshadowed by the big symphonies who left springs and rivulets of music for small groups that are waiting for those who have ears to hear. In years since then I have picked up the inexpensive season tickets and gone to soak myself in little pools of Dvorak and Brahms. It's rare to come away unquenched. Fair warning - the cupboard is always a little bare - but somehow they always pull off another season (28 or so by now). If any of my friends or associates here have any interest in toe-dipping over there, let me know and I'd be more than happy to make the introductions.

In 2008, I spent fifteen weeks in politics, receiving 21% of a primary election vote for representative of the 32nd Congressional District of the U.S. Congress, after campaigning on a variety of observations about the misuse of government resources in the wake of what Wall Street Journal writer Thomas Frank aptly called ‘The Wrecking Crew’. I urged, as a primary issue (in the winter and spring of 2008), the need for effective regulation of financial markets. Knowing almost no one in Texas politics when I began, I spent a considerable amount of time crafting a political profile that ultimately was impossible to convey (or sell) in a brief time. Although I learned a great deal about contemporary political process, and have some pride in the breadth of issues that I addressed in the brief time, I don't assume the realm to be a calling. It was, though, an interesting fifteen weeks. I'm confident that I was the only presumptive D in the country casting a cold eye on both Ms. Pelosi ("we have to pass a bill in order to find out what's in it") and the Syrian regime. My present take on our state of affairs is that that it's been a pretty good ride, and we've restored a lot of wealth in the upper tier. But we have real blind spots. Entitlements and the voracious appetite of agencies are real problems, and so, as well, are cronyism and the fact that our tax code is being manipulated in ways that no one has a real handle on anymore. Money swirls around here, offshore and overseas, from private equity pools to black holes. So little opportunity is being created along the old meridians - young and old are more gun crazy than girl crazy. The best I can say is that you look for people who love the country and have no need to worry about about what their votes or proposals might do for lengthening their political careers. It's the only prescription I can conceive of to take us out of the Murdoch and Mommy Party ruts, and the wash of insecurity and negativity, that we're in.

J.D., Law

Activities and Societies: An "A" in Ethics, a few very good friends, a love of Palsgraf, and otherwise not a lot to write here or home.

Bachelor Of Arts, Psychology (Personality Theory), Once Or Twice On The Dean'S List

Activities and Societies: Co-instructor of graduate/undergraduate seminar (on a phenomenological approach to therapy); nominal campaign.

Core Undergraduate Curriculum, Undeclared

Activities and Societies: "The physical body is an agent of the spirit and its mirror. It is an engine and a reflection of the spirit. It.