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Dunham LLP: The Austin Trial Firm That Represents Both Sides of a Patent Fight, Just Not in the Same Case

In the same attorney biography, David Dunham lists representing patent owners suing infringers in the Western District of Texas, and, separately, defending a large international software company against patent infringement claims in the Eastern District. That’s not a contradiction — it’s a mixed-representation trial practice, openly disclosed rather than papered over, and it’s worth naming upfront in a legal directory that treats plaintiff/defense disclosure as a compliance requirement, not an afterthought.

Mixed-Representation Disclosure

Dunham LLP represents both plaintiffs and defendants in business litigation, depending on the matter and the client. The firm’s own marketing describes being “equally at home handling business litigation at trial all the way to verdict or advocating for our clients’ interests across the table in a settlement negotiation,” and founder David Dunham’s case history includes both plaintiff-side patent enforcement and defense-side patent infringement representation. Awesome Attorneys is disclosing this explicitly, as it does for every Business & Corporate Litigation profile, rather than letting a firm’s marketing imply a single-sided practice where the underlying case history shows otherwise.

Origin and Background

David E. Dunham founded the firm in Austin and has practiced business litigation there for more than 30 years. He is board certified in Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, holds Martindale-Hubbell’s AV Preeminent peer-review rating (the service’s highest), and has been named a Super Lawyer 17 times between 2003 and 2023 by Thomson Reuters. He is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, an invitation-only trial-lawyer organization. He earned his J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law and his undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University. The firm today includes additional attorneys — Isabelle M. Antongiorgi, Larry Hilton, and Bruce Beach — practicing alongside Dunham.

Practice Concentration

Dunham LLP is a litigation-only firm: business litigation, professional liability, employment litigation, intellectual property litigation (patent, trademark, and copyright), securities arbitration and litigation, business collection litigation, real estate litigation, insurance litigation, and defamation litigation. It does not handle transactional business law, estate planning, or personal injury; every listed practice area is dispute-resolution work, whether that resolution happens at trial or at a negotiating table. For a broader look at how firms in this category compare, see our Business & Corporate Litigation directory.

Notable Work / Track Record

Dunham LLP’s own materials describe several notable trial results, and Awesome Attorneys is presenting them as the firm’s claims rather than independently re-verified figures except where a third-party source corroborates them. The firm states it obtained one of the highest jury verdicts in the state in a fraud and breach-of-contract case brought by a founding investor; one of the largest verdicts in the state in a breach-of-contract, fraud, and defamation case for an advertising and marketing company; and one of the largest verdicts in the country in a breach-of-contract and fraud case for a telecommunications company against a major long-distance carrier. Separately, Avvo’s public case-result listing for Dunham confirms a $35,411,313.43 federal jury verdict in Teleplus, Inc. v. Avantel, S.A., following a two-week trial — this figure is corroborated outside the firm’s own site. As with all litigation outcomes, past results do not guarantee similar outcomes in any other case; each matter is decided on its own facts.

Client Voice

Dunham’s Avvo profile shows two published client reviews, both from verified-hired clients and both positive. One client, describing an LLC dispute, wrote that Dunham “was successful in getting our return of invested capital from an LLC that had gone opaque and would not communicate with us,” adding that they were “very pleased with Dunham LLP’s professional service, communication, and reasonable billing.” A second client, a software company, described using Dunham “on several contract and licensing disputes over the years” and called his work “a huge asset.” Awesome Attorneys did not identify any negative or lower-rated reviews for this firm in the course of research; the review sample available (two Avvo reviews) is smaller than for some other firms profiled in this directory, which is itself worth disclosing rather than presenting as a larger sample than it is.

Beyond the Courtroom

David Dunham serves as a board director of Caritas of Austin, a nonprofit focused on poverty and homelessness, and holds board or advisory board roles with two Austin-based companies, Concept Services and KLD Energy Technologies.

Recognition for This Austin Business Litigation Firm

Peer-reviewed and third-party credentials: board certification in Civil Trial Law from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization; Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent rating; membership in the American Board of Trial Advocates; and 17 selections to the Super Lawyers list by Thomson Reuters, spanning 2003 to 2023. These are distinct from the firm’s self-reported verdict figures above, which Awesome Attorneys attributes to the firm except where independently corroborated.

Texas Legal Backdrop

Business disputes among partners, LLC members, and shareholders in Texas are governed primarily by the Texas Business Organizations Code, alongside whatever partnership, operating, or shareholder agreement governs the specific entity — meaning the contract terms a business signed at formation often control the dispute as much as the statute does. Breach of contract claims in Texas generally carry a four-year statute of limitations under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.004 and § 16.051, though specific contract terms or claim types can shorten or extend that window. Fraud claims carry their own four-year limitations period under § 16.004, with a discovery-rule analysis that can affect when the clock starts. None of this is legal advice; the limitations period and governing framework for any specific business dispute should be evaluated by a licensed Texas attorney based on the actual facts and agreements involved.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Dunham LLP’s case is straightforward for a business facing a genuinely high-stakes dispute: a board-certified trial lawyer with three decades of Austin practice, an AV Preeminent peer rating, and a track record that includes at least one independently corroborated eight-figure verdict. The honest trade-off is exactly what a litigation-only boutique implies — this is not a full-service business law firm that will also draft the underlying contracts or handle the corporate formation work; it’s a firm built for when a dispute has already emerged and needs to go to trial or be credibly threatened with trial. The available public review sample is thin (two Avvo reviews), which is a genuine data limitation worth naming rather than treating star ratings from a small sample as equivalent to a firm with hundreds of reviews. For a business already in or approaching a serious dispute — shareholder conflict, contract fraud, IP infringement on either side of the “v.” — that trial-focused specialization is the point. For routine transactional business law work, this isn’t the right fit.

Methodology and Sourcing

This profile was researched from Dunham LLP’s official website (dunhamllp.com), David E. Dunham’s Super Lawyers and Martindale-Hubbell profiles, his Avvo attorney and case-result pages, and the Texas Board of Legal Specialization’s public certification standards. Verdict figures attributed to the firm’s own marketing are labeled as the firm’s claims; the Teleplus v. Avantel verdict figure is corroborated via Avvo’s independently-maintained case-result listing.

Publisher Disclosure and Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal directory and editorial publication. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by Dunham LLP or its attorneys prior to publication. Awesome Attorneys may in the future offer sponsored placement products to attorneys and firms, including this one, but sponsorship has no bearing on the editorial content, inclusion, or findings of this profile.