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Fitzpatrick Jacks Smith & Uhl: The Firm Built by a Former State Bar “Prosecutor of the Year”

Fitzpatrick Jacks Smith & Uhl is not a conventional law firm — its own site describes it as “an association of independent law firms” practicing together out of a single Dallas office at 500 N. Akard Street. What holds it together is a shared résumé: nearly every named attorney spent years as a prosecutor before switching sides, and the firm’s most senior name, Knox Fitzpatrick, was the State Bar of Texas’s 1993 Prosecutor of the Year before becoming one of the more credentialed names among Dallas criminal defense attorney firms working the other side of the courtroom. This profile joins Awesome Attorneys’ broader coverage of Dallas criminal defense attorney options.

At a Glance

Origin & Background

Knox Fitzpatrick earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in 1974 and his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 1978. He spent nine years as an Assistant Criminal District Attorney in Dallas County, rising to Chief Felony Prosecutor under legendary Dallas County DA Henry Wade and his successor John Vance, before being named the State Bar of Texas’s Criminal Law Section Prosecutor of the Year in 1993. In between, he served as Associate and then Executive Director of the Criminal Justice Division in the Texas Governor’s Office and as General Counsel to the Governor. He has tried more than 300 jury cases in a 39-year career and is Board Certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.

The firm itself has operated under variations of the Fitzpatrick name since 1994 (Fitzpatrick & Hagood, then Fitzpatrick Hagood Fisher & Holmes, then Fitzpatrick Hagood Smith & Uhl, and since 2017 Fitzpatrick Jacks Smith & Uhl), reflecting an evolving partnership of independent practices rather than a single traditional law firm — a structure the firm discloses openly on its own site. Co-founder Robert R. Smith Jr. brings a parallel federal pedigree: 12 years as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas before 38 years in private white-collar defense practice.

Dallas Criminal Defense Attorney Practice Concentration

The firm’s practice concentrates on serious and high-profile criminal defense — felonies, federal crimes, sex crimes, violent crimes, weapons charges, white-collar and fraud crimes, and Title IX/student board representation — alongside a dedicated DWI/DUI defense practice covering administrative license revocation, field-sobriety and breath-test challenges, and occupational driver’s licenses. A separate civil litigation practice (business and commercial litigation) exists within the same association but is outside the scope of this profile.

Track Record

Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. These are a small sample from a published list of roughly 80 case summaries on the firm’s own site; the firm selected which results to publish, and Awesome Attorneys could not independently verify docket-level outcomes against court records. Readers should treat these as the firm’s own claims.

Client Voice

Awesome Attorneys looked for independently posted client reviews of Fitzpatrick Jacks Smith & Uhl and its named attorneys on Avvo, FindLaw, and Yelp. As of this writing, the firm has no published reviews on FindLaw’s directory, and lead attorney Robert R. Smith Jr.’s Avvo profile shows “0.0 — Not Yet Reviewed.” This is a genuine gap in the public record rather than an oversight on this profile’s part: a firm built on high-profile, often confidential criminal matters for prominent individuals may simply generate fewer public reviews than a high-volume consumer DWI practice, but the absence means prospective clients cannot rely on third-party review signal here the way they can for many other firms in this directory.

Beyond the Courtroom

Fitzpatrick has served in a series of public appointments beyond his firm practice: a gubernatorial appointee to the Texas Indigent Defense Commission and the Governor’s Criminal Justice Task Force, a member of the State Bar of Texas’s Legal Representation for Those on Death Row Committee, counsel to the Prosecutor Standards and Guideline Study Commission, and a participant in the early-1990s rewrite of major sections of the Texas Penal Code. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and as President of the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.

Recognition

Fitzpatrick’s core credential is his Board Certification in Criminal Law from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, combined with the State Bar of Texas’s 1993 Prosecutor of the Year award — both substantive, peer- or institution-conferred honors rather than pay-to-play marketing lists. He has also been named a Texas Super Lawyer by Texas Monthly for 16 consecutive years (2003–2018) and a Best Lawyer in Dallas by D Magazine (2015–2017); these are reputable peer-nomination awards, though — unlike board certification — they are not government- or bar-administered credentials and should be read accordingly. Robert R. Smith Jr. carries a separate multi-year Super Lawyers listing in White Collar Defense.

Texas Legal Backdrop

A first DWI in Texas is a Class B misdemeanor under Texas Penal Code § 49.04 (up to 180 days in jail, a fine up to $2,000); a second DWI is a Class A misdemeanor, and a third is a third-degree felony carrying 2 to 10 years in prison. As with any Texas DWI arrest, a driver has only 15 days from arrest to request an Administrative License Revocation hearing under Texas Transportation Code Chapters 524 and 724 before an automatic license suspension takes effect. For the firm’s broader criminal defense practice, Texas felony cases generally proceed by grand jury indictment, and a “No Bill” — a result that appears repeatedly in the firm’s published case list — means the grand jury declined to indict, ending the case without a trial. Certain serious offenses, including murder, have no criminal statute of limitations in Texas under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 12.01, while most felonies carry a 3- to 10-year limitations period depending on the offense.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

On raw credentials, this is one of the more heavyweight criminal defense benches in Dallas: a former Chief Felony Prosecutor and Governor’s General Counsel who is also TBLS board certified, a former federal prosecutor turned white-collar specialist, and a published case list running to roughly 80 results that includes multiple no-bills, dismissals, and not-guilty jury verdicts in serious felony matters. The firm’s DWI practice, while not its headline focus the way it is for some smaller boutiques, is genuine and substantively documented, including specific DWI dismissals and not-guilty verdicts.

The trade-off is transparency and accessibility. The “association of independent law firms” structure means a prospective client is not necessarily hiring one unified firm with shared malpractice exposure and case management — it is closer to a referral network of allied solo and small practices sharing an office and a marketing brand, which is worth clarifying directly with whichever attorney takes the case. And the near-total absence of public client reviews, while explainable by the confidential, high-profile nature of the practice, means this profile’s assessment leans more heavily on institutional credentials and self-published case results than on independent client feedback — a genuine limitation this publication is disclosing rather than glossing over.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was compiled from the firm’s own website (fjsulaw.com, including its About Us, Knox Fitzpatrick, Robert R. Smith, DWI, and Significant State Cases pages), Avvo attorney profiles for Knox Fitzpatrick and Robert R. Smith Jr., FindLaw’s firm directory listing, Super Lawyers’ firm and individual attorney profiles, and LawInfo’s independently-sourced firm summary. Statutory citations were checked against the Texas Penal Code, Texas Transportation Code, and Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. No case results, credentials, honors, or quotes were invented; all case outcomes are attributed to the firm’s own published case-results page and identified as the firm’s own claims rather than independently verified court records.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by Fitzpatrick Jacks Smith & Uhl or any of its constituent firms prior to publication. Awesome Attorneys may in the future offer sponsored placements clearly labeled as such, but no payment of any kind determines inclusion in, or the content of, this editorial profile. This article is for informational purposes only, does not constitute legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship between the reader and Fitzpatrick Jacks Smith & Uhl or Awesome Attorneys.