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The Sanford Firm: Double Board-Certified, Behind One of Texas’s Largest Employment Verdicts

In October 2022, a Houston jury awarded a former FedEx sales manager $366,160,000 in her retaliation case against the shipping giant — one of the largest employment verdicts in Texas history. Founding attorney Brian P. Sanford of The Sanford Firm led that trial team. Note for readers comparing firms: this is a different practice from Gillespie Sanford LLP, also covered on this Dallas employment lawyer directory — the shared surname is coincidental, not a connection between the two firms.

At a Glance: This Dallas Employment Trial Lawyer’s Credentials

I. A Double Board Certification That Sets Him Apart

Brian Sanford earned his B.A. from Southern Methodist University in 1982 and his J.D. from SMU’s Dedman School of Law in 1986, the same year he was admitted to the Texas bar. What distinguishes his credentials from most plaintiff-side employment attorneys in this category is that he holds Texas Board of Legal Specialization certification in two separate areas: Civil Trial Law and Labor and Employment Law. Most attorneys in this practice area, including several others profiled on this site, hold one such certification; holding both signals a trial generalist’s courtroom range layered onto employment-law subject-matter depth.

II. From Corporate Defense to Employee Advocacy

Sanford’s own account of his career describes an unusual arc: he began practicing law representing corporations in business litigation before moving to represent only individuals harmed when others violate the law. The firm today is a small team — Sanford is joined by attorney Elizabeth “BB” Sanford, along with additional attorneys and staff — that describes its mission as defending individuals, not businesses, a shift the firm frames as central to its identity rather than incidental to it.

III. Practice Concentration

The Sanford Firm’s founding attorney assists employees with employment contracts, severance review, wrongful termination, discrimination, disability benefits, sexual harassment, and retaliation claims. The firm’s current site states its mission is protecting individuals rather than businesses, and its practice areas center on Title VII and Section 1981 discrimination and retaliation claims, breach of contract disputes tied to employment, and related civil rights litigation, handled in both state and federal courts across Texas.

IV. Track Record

Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome. Jury verdicts, including the ones below, are frequently reduced, appealed, or settled for different amounts than the headline figure, as the FedEx case illustrates.

In Harris v. FedEx Corporate Services, Inc., a Houston jury found in October 2022 that FedEx had retaliated against a former district sales manager for reporting race discrimination, awarding $1,160,000 in compensatory damages and $365,000,000 in punitive damages — a total of $366,160,000. FedEx appealed, and in February 2024 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the punitive damages award, finding the evidence did not show FedEx acted with malice or reckless indifference, while otherwise upholding the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the jury’s retaliation verdict. Awesome Attorneys is disclosing this appellate outcome directly rather than citing only the original headline figure, since the punitive damages component — the vast majority of the award — did not survive appeal.

Separately, the firm reports a $4.4 million Dallas County jury verdict in Avellan v. Methodist Hospitals of Dallas (Cause No. CC-22-03003-C, County Court at Law No. 3, Dallas County), representing a medical resident who was terminated from her residency program after announcing a second pregnancy, for pregnancy discrimination and breach of her Resident Physician Agreement. This case number and outcome are as reported by the firm; Awesome Attorneys did not independently locate third-party press coverage of this specific verdict at the time of this profile. A third result, a $70 million racial discrimination verdict on behalf of nine Black FedEx workers reported earlier in 2022, was also attributed to the firm by contemporaneous press coverage of the later Harris case, though full case details were outside the scope of this profile’s research.

V. Client Voice

The Sanford Firm carries a 4.5-star aggregate rating across 26 Google reviews compiled by Birdeye, and a 4.4-star rating from a separate set of seven reviewers on Chamber of Commerce’s directory. On the firm’s own testimonials page, one client described how Brian’s candor, honesty and empathy came shining through throughout the case. A FindLaw reviewer who hired the firm in 2017 wrote that Sanford and his team worked hard for what was right against a large corporate employer that ultimately settled out of court. Avvo reviews independently echo the same theme: clients and even a prospective client Sanford was unable to take on described him as generous with his time and knowledge.

VI. Beyond the Courtroom

Sanford serves as Instructor and Co-Dean of the Keenan Trial Institute, and was named the Institute’s Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2022. He is a past president and current board member of the Texas Employment Lawyers Association, a board member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and a Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation. He has published on implicit bias in the Texas Bar Journal and co-authored a piece on arbitrating employment cases with attorney Elizabeth “BB” Sanford in the State Bar of Texas Litigation Section’s The Advocate. Outside the firm, he has sung with the Dallas Symphony Chorus for over twenty years and is active in his church and local nonprofit work.

VII. Recognition

Peer-reviewed and independently conferred credentials: dual Texas Board of Legal Specialization certification in Civil Trial Law and Labor and Employment Law; AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell, the organization’s highest peer rating; membership in the College of Labor & Employment Lawyers; The National Trial Lawyers Top 100 (Civil); and a Texas Super Lawyers selection. Awesome Attorneys also notes the firm’s D Magazine Best Lawyers recognition and a 2023 Power Lawyer honor from Lawyers of Distinction — the latter is a paid-nomination-adjacent recognition program in some of its tiers, and readers should weigh it as a secondary credential alongside the peer-reviewed certifications above, not equivalent to them.

VIII. The Texas Legal Backdrop

The firm’s largest reported case relied on 42 U.S.C. § 1981, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which prohibits race discrimination in contracts including employment and carries no requirement to first file an EEOC charge, unlike Title VII claims. Title VII, the ADA, and the ADEA claims generally do require an EEOC charge before suit, and Texas’s parallel state law — the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act, Texas Labor Code Chapter 21 — requires a charge with the Texas Workforce Commission’s Civil Rights Division within 180 days of the alleged act.

On the punitive damages question central to the FedEx appeal, Texas and federal law both require a heightened showing — malice or reckless indifference to federally protected rights, in the Title VII context — before punitive damages can stand, which is exactly the standard the Fifth Circuit found unmet in that case despite the jury’s initial award.

IX. Awesome Attorneys Assessment: This Dallas Employment Lawyer’s Strengths and Limits

Sanford’s dual board certification and a genuine, independently verifiable nine-figure jury verdict place him among the more credentialed and battle-tested plaintiff-side employment attorneys in this category. The Keenan Trial Institute leadership role and decades of CLE presentations to fellow employment lawyers reflect a level of peer standing that goes beyond client-facing marketing.

The honest complication is the FedEx verdict itself: the $365 million punitive damages component, which made up more than 99% of the original award, was vacated on appeal. Prospective clients reading marketing materials that lead with the $366 million headline figure should understand that the surviving verdict is substantially smaller, even though the underlying finding of retaliation was upheld. That gap between headline and outcome is disclosed here because it materially changes what the case demonstrates about likely results.

X. Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was compiled from the firm’s own website (sanfordfirm.com), including its attorney biography, testimonials, and case blog posts; Super Lawyers’ attorney profile; Martindale-Hubbell and Avvo reviews; Birdeye and Chamber of Commerce aggregated review data; and third-party press and legal-industry coverage of Harris v. FedEx Corporate Services, Inc., including SHRM, HR Dive, the Fifth Circuit’s published opinion (via FindLaw), and contemporaneous local news coverage. The Avellan case detail is sourced to the firm’s own account and its cited cause number; Awesome Attorneys did not locate independent press verification of that specific verdict. No case results, credentials, or quotes were invented; where independent verification was unavailable, that gap is disclosed rather than filled.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by The Sanford Firm 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 The Sanford Firm or Awesome Attorneys.