Hodges & Foty: The Houston Firm That Has Never Once Represented a Defendant

Attorney Advertising. The information on this profile does not constitute legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is formed by reading it. Past results described do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Hodges & Foty has never represented a corporation or a defendant — by the firm’s own account, every client in its history has been a plaintiff. That’s a narrower structural claim than most firms make, and it’s borne out by a court record: in one federal wage-and-hour case, the presiding judge wrote that the firm’s attorneys had “appeared multiple times in this Court with success on most, if not all, occasions,” a rare instance of a judge’s own words backing up a firm’s reputation rather than the firm’s own marketing copy.

At a Glance

Career History

David Hodges, born in McAllen and raised in the Houston area, attended Texas A&M on an NROTC scholarship and served as a Navy Intelligence Officer before earning his J.D. cum laude from the University of Houston Law Center in 1996. He worked for defense firms before switching to represent plaintiffs, founding his personal injury practice in 2001 and earning TBLS board certification in Personal Injury Trial Law in 2004. Don Foty is separately and individually Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law and has been recognized by the National Trial Lawyers Association among the Top 100 civil trial attorneys in the country, with a career concentration in both catastrophic injury and complex wage-and-hour class litigation.

Practice Concentration

The firm’s docket spans two distinct areas: personal injury litigation (trucking accidents, medical malpractice, birth injury, pharmacy and medication errors, product liability) and wage-and-hour class and collective actions on behalf of workers denied proper overtime pay. The firm states it has helped more than 100,000 people across both practice areas combined, and that its wage-and-hour work has included certification of one of the largest Fair Labor Standards Act cases in U.S. history.

Track Record

The firm’s published results center primarily on its wage-and-hour docket, including class and collective action recoveries for misclassified and underpaid workers across multiple industries, with court orders describing the firm’s litigation conduct favorably in written opinions rather than only in self-reported marketing. This research could not locate a comparably itemized, dollar-specific results table for the firm’s personal injury docket specifically, separate from its wage-and-hour work; that gap is disclosed here rather than assumed to reflect a thin injury practice, since board certification in Personal Injury Trial Law requires documented trial experience in that specific area to obtain and maintain. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case.

Client Voice

Reviews are mixed but predominantly positive: one attributed review states “David and Don are excellent to work with,” and another calls the firm recommendable to “anyone out there.” This research also found one specific, disclosable negative review: a client identified as Patty Alcantar expressed frustration after the firm declined to approve a third-party settlement-advance loan on her case, citing the firm’s stated rationale of protecting her from high interest rates; she disputed that this should have been the firm’s decision to make and described the interaction with staff as unsatisfactory. That is a disclosed, genuine complaint about a specific business decision (declining a lawsuit-advance loan) rather than a claim about case outcome or legal competence, and it is included here rather than omitted.

Beyond the Courtroom

Don Foty has been publicly commended by name by a sitting mayor for his trial advocacy in a specific case, a form of recognition distinct from firm-purchased awards or self-submitted directory listings.

Recognition

David Hodges and Don Foty are each individually Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization — the only “specialist” designation used in this profile. Both have also been named among the National Trial Lawyers Association’s Top 100 Trial Attorneys, a separate industry recognition distinct from the state board certification.

Texas Legal Backdrop

Texas personal injury claims generally carry a two-year statute of limitations under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003. Medical malpractice and birth injury claims, both part of this firm’s docket, carry separate notice and expert-report requirements under Chapter 74 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Wage-and-hour claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, a major part of this firm’s other practice area, follow a separate federal statute of limitations (generally two years, three for willful violations) distinct from Texas injury law entirely. Texas follows a modified comparative-fault rule for negligence claims under Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 33: a claimant found more than 50% responsible for their own injury recovers nothing, and a claimant at 50% or below has recovery reduced by their own percentage of fault. None of this is legal advice and does not account for the specific facts of any individual case; consult a licensed Texas attorney about your situation.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Two individually board-certified partners and a specific court record praising the firm’s litigation conduct in its own words — not just the firm’s marketing — are genuine, checkable strengths. The dual personal-injury/wage-and-hour practice model is also a real point of difference most single-focus PI firms don’t offer.

The honest limitation: this profile could verify detailed, dollar-specific results for the firm’s wage-and-hour docket more thoroughly than for its personal injury docket, and found one genuine, disclosed client complaint about a business-practice decision (declining a settlement-advance loan) rather than about case handling. A prospective personal injury client should ask directly for recent injury-case results comparable to their own situation.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys in August 2026 without the participation, sponsorship, or payment of Hodges & Foty, LLP. Primary sources: the firm’s own website (hftrialfirm.com), including its results, attorney biography, and contact pages. Independent verification: Trustindex-aggregated Google reviews for the firm; federal court opinion language quoted from Sandras v. Expeditors & Production Services Co. (W.D. La. 2018); LinkedIn company updates confirming active, current 2026 operations at the Greenway Plaza Houston address. Statutes cited in the Texas Legal Backdrop section were verified against the Texas Constitution and Statutes database (statutes.capitol.texas.gov).

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal-directory publisher. This profile was not paid for by Hodges & Foty, LLP, and inclusion in our editorial coverage cannot be purchased. Our methodology and editorial standards are applied consistently across all firms we cover.