William T. Reid, IV (“Bill”) is a founding member of Reid Collins & Tsai LLP. A formidable trial lawyer, Bill has tried a wide range of civil and criminal cases to verdict before judges and juries. His complex commercial litigation practice is national and international in scope, and he is currently representing several public companies, numerous liquidators, bankruptcy fiduciaries, and Securities Exchange Commission-appointed Receivers, among others. Bill’s active cases span a range of jurisdictions and involve clients, assets, and witnesses located throughout the world.
A seasoned commercial litigator, Bill has extensive experience litigating, and trying, a broad range of complex commercial and financial cases, including insolvency-related litigation, professional malpractice, business torts, fraud, and complex financial transactions. He has handled many cases arising out of Ponzi schemes and cross-border fraud, as well as fiduciary litigation, professional liability, and bad faith insurance actions.
For three years as an Assistant United States Attorney during the 1990′s, Bill focused on complex drug and corruption prosecutions, trying 25 cases to verdict, and getting 24 convictions, and prosecuting hundreds of cases annually. Since returning to private practice in 2000, he has never lost a jury trial. Since 2009, Bill has obtained several “top-100” trial judgments/verdicts for his plaintiff clients. He is currently managing a docket of plaintiff ’s litigation far in excess of $1 billion.
Bill’s reputation as one of the nation’s preeminent plaintiff ’s trial lawyers is affirmed annually by all major industry publications. Among his higher-profile accolades, in both 2020 and 2023 Benchmark Litigation named Bill the “U.S. Plaintiff Attorney of the Year” and in 2021 Law360 honored him as a “Titan of the Plaintiffs Bar,” one of only a handful of litigators in the nation so recognized. He has been twice named a “Plaintiff ’s Trailblazer” by the National Law Journal and a “Trailblazer” by Texas Lawyer. For six consecutive years, Bill has been selected as one of the “Top 100 Trial Lawyers in America” by Benchmark Litigation and he is regularly recognized as a one of the nation’s top practitioners by Chambers USA and Best Lawyers in America®. In addition, Lawdragon has recognized Bill as one of the “500 Leading Lawyers in America” for several years running, and his cases have been listed in the National Law Journal’s Top- 100 verdicts multiple years.
He is admitted to practice in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second and Fifth Circuits, the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and all of the United States District Courts in Texas. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the Fifth Circuit Bar Association, the New York State Bar, and the State Bar of Texas.
After law school, Bill served as a law clerk to the Honorable Reynaldo G. Garza, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Bill received his J.D., cum laude, from St. John’s University School of Law, where he was an editor of the St. John’s Law Review. Bill received a dual undergraduate degree – a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Connecticut at Storrs, cum laude.
Updated Sep 2024
