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Sally Goodman Law: One of the First Women to Take on Dallas’s Big Defense Firms

Sally Goodman remembers attending a federal criminal defense seminar 25 years into a career that now spans four decades — and counting only one other woman among 300 lawyers in the room. She built her practice going head-to-head with larger, better-known firms anyway, and has spent more than 30 years since then defending everything from DWI cases to federal white-collar and sex-offense charges in Dallas. This profile is part of Awesome Attorneys’ coverage of Dallas criminal defense attorney options.

At a Glance

Origin & Background

Sally Goodman was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in 1984 and began her legal career as a Dallas County prosecutor before founding her own criminal defense practice. She has practiced for more than 30 years as one of relatively few women handling serious federal and state criminal defense work in North Texas, including cases many firms decline — sexual assault, child pornography, and internet solicitation charges — alongside more common DWI, drug, and white-collar matters. She is Board Certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and is fluent in Spanish, which she uses regularly representing immigrant clients facing criminal charges with immigration consequences (“crimmigration” cases).

Dallas Criminal Defense Attorney Practice Concentration

The firm handles a broad criminal defense docket — federal crimes, drug crimes, weapons offenses, white-collar crime, assault and domestic violence, juvenile crimes, probation violations, sex offenses, and crimmigration matters — alongside a dedicated DWI defense practice, including breath and blood test refusal/failure cases specifically. The firm’s website maintains individually developed practice pages for each of these areas rather than a single generic criminal-defense listing, reflecting genuine practice depth across the range advertised.

Track Record

The firm’s Results page (linked from its own site) is not summarized with a dated case table in the sources reviewed for this profile. One client review references a successful Driver’s License Revocation (ALR) hearing outcome and a probation term reduced to 15 months; another references a no-bill obtained across multiple related cases. Awesome Attorneys could not independently verify these outcomes and presents them as the firm’s and its clients’ own claims.

Client Voice

Goodman holds a 5.0-out-of-5.0 rating across 6 client reviews on Avvo, with no negative reviews identified during this research:

“Attorney Sally is an excellent attorney and did an excellent professional job in taking care of my case from the beginning to the end… She is not only knowledgeable about the law, she has an excellent professional rapport with judges, clerks, and genuinely cares for her clients as people.” — Avvo client review

“Ms. Goodman work[ed] diligently through the whole process but her experience with knowing the law helped us get the verdict we wanted (no-bill on all cases.)” — Avvo client review

Peer endorsements on the same platform describe her as “a brilliant lawyer who knows what results she wants for her clients” and “a valiant defender of the criminally accused.” The consistency of the 5.0 rating across multiple years of reviews (2015–2020 span) is a genuine positive signal, though the overall review count (6) is modest relative to some higher-volume Dallas defense practices.

Beyond the Courtroom

Goodman has publicly discussed being one of the earliest women in North Texas federal criminal defense practice, recalling being one of two women among roughly 300 attorneys at a federal defense seminar 25 years into her career. She has extended her practice specifically to serve Spanish-speaking clients and immigrants facing criminal charges, an area (“crimmigration”) that requires understanding both criminal and immigration consequences simultaneously.

Recognition

Goodman’s Board Certification in Criminal Law from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization is the substantive, exam-and-peer-vetted credential this profile treats as most significant, and the basis for describing her practice with the term “specialist.” Awesome Attorneys did not find Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, or D Magazine recognition for Goodman at the time of this research; her professional standing rests primarily on board certification, a multi-decade practice history, and a consistently strong direct client review record.

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). Refusing or failing a breath or blood test — an area of specific focus for the firm — triggers separate administrative consequences: a driver has 15 days from arrest to request an Administrative License Revocation hearing under Texas Transportation Code Chapters 524 and 724 to contest an automatic license suspension, and refusal specifically can result in a longer suspension period than a failed test. For the firm’s crimmigration practice, certain criminal convictions can trigger immigration consequences (removal proceedings, inadmissibility) under federal immigration law independent of the state criminal sentence, which is why coordinated criminal-immigration strategy matters for non-citizen defendants.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Sally Goodman’s combination of a genuine 1984 bar admission with no misconduct findings, TBLS board certification, and a perfect 5.0 Avvo rating across multiple years of client reviews is a solid, consistent record for a solo criminal defense practice. Her willingness to take on cases many firms decline — sex offenses, child pornography charges — combined with her Spanish-language crimmigration practice, reflects a genuinely broader risk tolerance and subject-matter range than many boutique defense practices offer.

The honest limitation is review volume: 6 reviews, while uniformly positive, is a smaller sample than several other Dallas criminal defense firms in this directory, and this profile could not locate a dated, detailed case-results table to independently assess outcomes at scale. For a prospective client, that means Goodman’s four-decade track record and board certification are the stronger evidentiary anchors here, with client reviews serving as a positive but limited-volume supporting signal.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was compiled from the firm’s own website (sallygoodmanlaw.com, including its Attorney, Criminal Defense, and DWI practice pages), Sally Goodman’s Avvo attorney profile and client reviews (including bar-record and misconduct data), Yelp’s firm listing, and LawInfo’s directory listing. Statutory citations were checked against the Texas Penal Code and Texas Transportation Code. No case results, credentials, or quotes were invented; all client reviews and endorsements are attributed to Avvo and identified as claims where independent verification was not possible.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by Sally Goodman Law 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 Sally Goodman Law or Awesome Attorneys.