with honors

Grace S. Miller

Whether you are a business or an individual, litigation can be extremely stressful. My clients know I’m in their corner from day one: learning their business, thinking ahead, and never treating their problem as routine.

Grace Miller helps Texas-based businesses with national problems and national businesses with Texas-based problems both inside and outside the courtroom. She represents plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes disputes across industries including software, FinTech, real estate, and healthcare.

Grace handles a broad range of commercial and consumer matters, including breach of contract, deceptive trade practices, and non-compete and trade secret disputes. From initial litigation assessment through trial and appeal, she has represented clients in state and federal courts and in arbitration across the country.

Grace approaches every matter with a practical mindset: litigation is a means to an end, not an end in itself. She works to understand each client’s goals from the outset, anticipates opposing counsel’s next move, and looks for creative solutions — without losing sight of what it takes to successfully take a case to trial.

Val C. Cronin

I function as a proactive advisor to my clients. I try to think ahead and come up with creative solutions to issues before they become problems for my clients. What makes coming to work exciting is coming up with creative solutions that most people don’t think of. The center of my wheelhouse is federal taxation. Since just about everything we do has a tax impact, my practice is varied. From helping clients structure their business lives from inception to sale to maximize their after-tax cash flow, to provide asset protection planning to help clients protect the wealth they have acquired, to mergers and acquisition work, to estate planning.

Val practices in the fields of mergers and acquisitions, taxation, asset protection, and estate planning. He offers considerable experience in business sales and acquisitions, family and business tax planning, asset protection, and estate planning for family succession.

Val offers years of experience structuring family business interests for growth and asset transfers and minimizing the tax consequences of those transactions in present day transfers and in transferring the family business to the next generation. He strongly believes in protecting key family assets from litigation risk and creating the business structures most likely to offer that advantage. As lawyers we frequently encounter people in crisis. He has learned to be a good listener to understand a client’s issues and concerns before he starts talking about solutions.

He has advised start-up businesses from inception through negotiating and drafting the documents to selling the business. In that process, he works with the client to structure the deal in a manner that minimizes income tax consequences and maximizes cash flow. Finally, he works with the client to plan for minimizing estate taxes and protect the assets the client has spent their business lives accumulating.

Val is a Certified Public Accountant.

Jack Freese

Jack Freese is an associate working primarily in our Litigation Group.

Jennifer Larson Ryback

Inspired by the Good, Better, Best poem she learned from her grandmother growing up, Jennifer is focused on helping her clients be the “good, better, best” they can be, whether that’s thinking ahead to prevent an issue, negotiating a resolution to a dispute, or bringing or defending a lawsuit.

Jennifer’s clients think of her as a problem solver, and she excels at helping clients navigate complicated issues, avoiding litigation when possible and helping her clients navigate in court or arbitration when necessary. Throughout the course of her career, Jennifer has handled many types of litigation, including defending employers against wrongful termination and wage claims, pursuing and defending breach of contract cases, bringing and defending claims related to construction defects and construction project payment issues, and handling a variety of disputes related to commercial real estate transactions. She also routinely advises clients on non-litigation employment law issues, including developing and updating employee handbooks, conducting investigations related to alleged employee misconduct, providing training to prevent discrimination and harassment in the workplace, and negotiating executive compensation and severance agreements.

Brent M. Rubin

Brent Rubin advocates for individuals, businesses, and government entities in litigation at the trial and appellate levels. Brent’s practice encompasses complex business disputes, including non-compete/non-solicitation issues, insurance coverage, and real estate and construction matters. He also handles government law matters for both public and private clients, including land use and zoning, open government, and immunity issues.

Brent represents both plaintiffs and defendants in claims of breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, fraud, and tortious interference. He represents clients as first-chair trial counsel and presents oral argument on appeal. He has also drafted, argued, and won dispositive motions in both state and federal court and has substantial experience with motions to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, Texas’s anti-SLAPP statute. Additionally, Brent assists the firm’s clients with immigration issues, focusing on business immigration.

When a client encounters a problem, out-of-the-box advice doesn’t cut it. I work to craft creative and efficient solutions that take my client’s goals to heart. Every case gets my thorough attention. That helps me plot effective—and often innovative—strategies and arguments that achieve the best results for my client.

Throughout his 25-plus years as an intellectual property lawyer, Steve Levine has applied a rich combination of legal skills, technological prowess, and business acumen to serve clients. Steve advises on business transactions and patent and trademark issues globally and provides copyright counseling. He also represents clients in the Patent and Trademark and Copyright Offices, as well as in federal courts.

In recent years, Steve has handled many trademark cases — an area that’s increasingly important in a world dominated by advertising, strong brands, and consumer impressions. He enjoys helping companies grow and protect the crucial public-facing symbols of their businesses. For more than a decade, he has acted as sole outside U.S. trademark counsel, also interacting internationally and routinely with various foreign counsel, for a Fortune 250 technology company.