Texas

Firm overview

Reid Collins & Tsai LLP (Reid Collins) is a trial boutique handling complex commercial litigation and bankruptcy-related litigation, particularly claims involving fiduciary liability, professional negligence, and financial fraud. Key clients include hedge funds, private equity funds, corporations, offshore liquidators, receivers, and bankruptcy trustees. Reid Collins has secured more than $1 billion in total judgments and settlements for its clients in the past several years alone.

Reid Collins is unique in several respects, including:
(1) its extensive experience with high-profile cases involving large-scale financial fraud or insolvency; (2) its expertise in successfully pursuing claims against officers, directors, accountants, lawyers, and investment banks relating to the underlying fraud or misconduct; and (3) its willingness to pursue those claims on an alternative fee basis. Reid Collin has earned many professional accolades, including being: 

• Listed as a “Recommended Firm” in Chambers USA;
• Named “Litigation Department of the Year Finalist” by Texas Lawyer;
• Selected to the “Litigation Boutiques Hot List” by the National Law Journal;
• Designated as “Elite Trial Lawyers” by the National Law Journal; and
• Named a “Top 10 Plaintiffs Firm in America” by Benchmark Litigation. 

Complex Commercial Litigation:
Reid Collins has achieved numerous victories in complex commercial litigation, including:

• Won a $287.5 million judgment (which was later affirmed on appeal) for Highland Capital against Credit Suisse following a five-week trial on fraud and breach of contract claims related to a $540 million loan for the Lake Las Vegas resort;
• Achieved a $63 million settlement to resolve claims by the Common-wealth of Virginia under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act against several large banks related to fraudulent misrepresentations in the sale of residential mortgage-backed securities to the Commonwealth’s retirement system; and
• Defeated a motion to compel arbitration of a $100 million class action alleging that Advocare International operates as an illegal pyramid scheme in violation of state and federal law, including the RICO statute. 

Bankruptcy-Related Litigation:
Reid Collins has prevailed in many important bankruptcy-related litigation matters, including:

• Won a landmark decision before the U.S. Supreme Court, restricting the scope of the section 546(e) “safe harbor” defense to fraudulent transfer claims, thereby overturning long-standing interpretations of that defense by five circuit courts;
• Defeated a motion to dismiss a $1 billion lawsuit by the GTAT Litigation Trust against the former officers of GT Advanced Technologies Inc., a former publicly traded company, related to its failed contract with Apple to manufacture sapphire display screens for the iPhone; and
• Achieved a $21.5 million settlement on behalf of the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Fresh & Easy, LLC, with respect to claims against the former insiders – including billionaire Ronald Burkle – for breach of fiduciary duty and fraudulent transfer of certain assets.

Firm overview

Tillotson Law Firm is a litigation boutique that focuses on significant commercial litigation matters. Three things separate Tillotson Law. First, we built our firm as a ‘team’ concept. The firm is a single, integrated trial team. Cases are not staffed with whatever lawyers might be free; the trial team is already in place. Clients know exactly who will work on their case and what their role is.

Second, our team has enormous trial expertise. Our team typically tries three to four major cases a year. Over the past two years alone, we tried jury cases in Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Georgia and California. We are on both sides of the docket as we often represent businesses as plaintiffs.

Third, our expertise is in knowing how to win cases. We do not litigate. We try cases to win. Lots of firms will tell you that the best way to get a case resolved is to push it to trial. Here’s the part they miss: You have to be a credible trial threat in the first place for that strategy to work. We have that credibility because we try - and win - the difficult cases. And when we say difficult, we are not kidding. After all, we are the trial team that exposed Lance Armstrong’s drug usage (the result of an epic ten-year lawsuit later made into a movie). We are also the trial team that earned the Texas Lawbook Business Litigation win of 2018 (FTC v. DIRECTV). That’s just the beginning. We are a law firm that took on Yahoo! in a “billion dollar NCAA bracket case” and won. Not every case makes the news but over consistent and long history of successful trials speaks for itself.

Last updated Sep 2020

Firm overview

Smyser Kaplan & Veselka, LLP (“SKV”) is a diverse and growing litigation boutique based in Houston, Texas, with an office in New Orleans, with nationally-recognized civil litigation and white-collar criminal defense practices. 

With its Houston roots, SKV has tried and won numerous energy cases over the years. But our practice is broader than that. We handle civil matters of all sorts, including intellectual property, healthcare, bankruptcy, and general commercial cases. We also have a flourishing white-collar practice, with a third of our attorneys specializing in the area. 

Our work spans all stages of a case and types of forums. We negotiate favorable resolutions to disputes before they go to court. We go to trial. We arbitrate. We mediate. We handle appeals. And we do so in jurisdictions across the country. 

While building our firm, we’ve stayed true to a single principle: People drive success. That’s why we’ve put together a first-class team. The vast majority of our lawyers began their careers as law clerks, and since then, they’ve seen just about everything. So it’s a rare day when we confront a legal issue for the first time. 

Experience, though, is just one piston in the engine that powers our firm. Another is our junior attorneys’ vigor. We hire promising young lawyers out of clerkships or early in their careers, and we treat them as future partners. That means they take depositions, draft dispositive motions and appellate merits briefs, and present oral arguments. The results speak for themselves: our associates provide terrific outcomes for our clients. 

But all of the individual talent in the world is useless without cohesion. We understand that, too, which is why we’ve fostered a family atmosphere. We’re not only colleagues; we’re friends. 

As SKV has grown, we’ve developed into one of the nation’s premiere litigation boutiques, and our commitment to excellence has not gone unnoticed. In recent years, SKV has been named: 

• The “Best Litigation Firm in Texas” (Benchmark Litigation) 
• One of the “10 Best Litigation Boutiques in the United States” (Benchmark Litigation) 
• The Small Firm Litigation Department of the Year for 2019 (Texas Lawyer) 
• A “Top 150 Under 150” firm for 2019 (Vault) 

SKV has also topped Vault’s national rankings for midsize firms, placing #1 for quality of work for associates, #2 for hours, #2 for culture, #4 for compensation, and #5 for career outlook. 

Racking up awards has never been our goal, but we appreciate the high praise. What matters most is delivering exceptional results for our clients while maintaining the family-like culture that brought us together in the first place. And as these decorations suggest, over the past 25 years we’ve done just that.

Last updated Aug 2020

Firm overview

King & Spalding’s Litigation practice is nationally and internationally recognized for its ability to litigate successfully the most difficult, high-stakes cases. For decades, our litigators have helped leading businesses succeed in commercial disputes. The practice has a record of winning trials, arbitrations, and appeals for clients across all industries, including energy, life sciences, healthcare, and financial services sectors. Our cross-firm, multidisciplinary team of attorneys tries high-stakes cases, resolves complex, multiparty disputes, and manages public relations for the most sensitive client matters. Our ranks include former high-ranking DOJ officials; former officials from SEC, EPA, FCC, FDA and FIC; and more than 30 former judicial clerks at the trial or appellate level.