Jeffrey S. Levinger

Jeff Levinger, founder of Levinger PC, has been a Texas appellate lawyer for over 35 years. He has authored hundreds of appellate briefs, and orally argued dozens of appeals in state and federal appellate courts, including 14 in the last two years. With a hands-on philosophy and an eye for detail, Jeff has handled appeals involving virtually every substantive area of the law, ranging from legal malpractice to intellectual property to products liability. And drawing on his early years as a trial lawyer, he frequently appears in cases at the trial level to write and argue dispositive legal motions and to position the case for trial and appeal. He is especially proficient in drafting and arguing jury charges, and he recently completed a lengthy term as the Chairman of the State Bar of Texas Pattern Jury Charge volume on Malpractice, Premises and Products.

Jeff grew up in Yankton, South Dakota, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College, and served on the law review at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he graduated with honors in 1982. From 1982 to 1983, he was a law clerk to U.S. Fifth Circuit Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham during the judge’s first year on the appellate bench. Jeff worked for the next 24 years at the Dallas law firm of Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal, where he served on the firm’s executive committee and headed its appellate section. Over the years, he has handled appeals involving some of the largest judgments in Texas and the Fifth Circuit, but he is perhaps best known for his 16-year representation of a Texas death row inmate that involved three evidentiary hearings and multiple appeals, eventually culminating in the inmate’s release from death row in 2005. Married with two sons, Jeff enjoys running, cycling, hiking, tennis, and reading.

• University of Virginia School of Law (J.D., 1982); Editorial Board, Virginia Law Review (1980-1982); Order of the Coif
• Dartmouth College (B.A., magna cum laude, 1979); Phi Beta Kappa

• Law Clerk to the Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (1982 – 83)

• Board Certified in Civil Appellate Law, Texas Board of Legal Specialization (1989 – present)
• Nationally Certified in Appellate Law by the American Institute of Appellate Practice (2013)

• Member, American Law Institute (2000 – present)
• Master, Wm. “Mac” Taylor American Inn of Court (1997 – present)
• Board of Governors, Bar Association of the Fifth Federal Circuit (2014 – present)
• Fellow, Litigation Counsel of America (2010 – present)
• Fellow, Texas Bar Foundation (1998 – present) and Dallas Bar Foundation (2001 – present)
• Member, State Bar of Texas Oversight Committee on Pattern Jury Charges (2019 – Present)
• Chairman, State Bar of Texas Appellate Section (2013 – 2014)
• Council Member, State Bar of Texas Appellate Section (2005 – 2008)
• Chairman, State Bar of Texas Committee on Pattern Jury Charges: Malpractice, Premises, & Products (2009 – 2017)
• Chairman, Dallas Bar Association Appellate Law Section (2006 – 2007)
• Chairman, Civil Appellate Law Advisory Commission for the Texas Board of Legal Specialization (2004 – 2005)

• Named in Best Lawyers in America in appellate practice, commercial litigation, and bet-the-company litigation (2008 – present)
• Named multiple times by D Magazine as one of the “Best Lawyers in Dallas” in appellate law
• Named multiple times as one of Texas’s top 100 attorneys (2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 as chosen by Texas Super Lawyers/Thomson Reuters legal division and published in Texas Monthly
• Named by Chambers USA as one of Texas’s top appellate attorneys (2010 – 2012)
• Named by Dallas Business Journal as one of Dallas’s top business defense lawyers (2010)
• Named by Benchmark Appellate Litigation as a “Fifth Circuit Litigation Star” (2012 – present)