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Kaplan Law Firm, PLLC: The Attorney Who Sued a County Clerk Over Marriage Licenses

Days after the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges in June 2015, Hood County Clerk Katie Lang was still refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, citing religious objections. Austin attorney Austin H. Kaplan (a first name that happens to match the city, a coincidence worth stating plainly to avoid confusion) and co-counsel Jan Soifer represented a Granbury couple, together 27 years, in the federal lawsuit that followed. The county issued the license within hours of the suit being filed and ultimately paid roughly $43,800 in attorneys’ fees to settle the case — a result confirmed independently through contemporaneous reporting in the Texas Tribune, Courthouse News Service, and the Austin Chronicle, not just the firm’s own account. It is an unusual origin story for what is now primarily an employment and whistleblower boutique, and it still shapes how the firm frames its civil rights work.

At a Glance: Austin Employment Lawyer Firm Overview

I. From a Marriage-License Fight to an Employment Boutique

Austin Kaplan founded the firm in 2015, the same year he and Jan Soifer took on Hood County Clerk Katie Lang on behalf of Jim Cato and Joe Stapleton. Court and press coverage of the matter describe Lang initially refusing licenses on religious grounds, then citing form-printing delays after a nonbinding opinion from then-Attorney General Ken Paxton encouraged clerks to slow-walk compliance; the couple received their license the same day the federal complaint was filed. Kaplan graduated magna cum laude from the University of Illinois College of Law and built the firm from that early civil rights work into a broader employment law and civil rights practice based at 2901 Bee Cave Road in Austin.

II. Board Certification and Civic Record

Texas Bar rules prohibit any attorney from advertising as a “specialist” unless board certified in that specialty by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization (TBLS) or an accredited certifying organization. Austin Kaplan holds that certification in Labor and Employment Law, a credential the firm’s own materials note is held by roughly 672 attorneys out of more than 12 million working Texans. Kaplan’s civic record extends beyond litigation: past Chairperson of the City of Austin’s Ethics Commission, past President of the Austin Young Lawyers Association, former Chair of the Austin Bar’s Pro Bono Committee, and a Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation. In 2016 he was named the Austin Under 40 “Austinite of the Year.”

III. Practice Concentration: What This Austin Employment Attorney Firm Handles

The firm represents employees, executives, whistleblowers, and civil rights plaintiffs. Its whistleblower practice, supported by Of Counsel Patrick O’Connell (who separately runs his own qui tam-focused practice), covers False Claims Act cases involving healthcare fraud, PPP fraud, procurement fraud, and financial fraud — a more specialized niche than the general discrimination and wage claims most employment boutiques handle. The broader team also litigates standard employment matters: discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination, non-compete disputes, and unpaid overtime, including sales-commission structuring issues under the Fair Labor Standards Act, an area the firm has published specifically about.

IV. Track Record

Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome. Employment and civil rights settlements are frequently confidential, which limits what any firm can publish about case values. The result below is independently confirmed through contemporaneous press coverage, not solely the firm’s own account.

Awesome Attorneys was not able to independently verify specific dollar figures for the firm’s more recent employment and whistleblower matters, which is typical for a practice handling confidential settlements; the 2015 case above is included because it produced an unusually well-documented public record through independent press coverage rather than only the firm’s own claims.

V. Client Voice

Reviews on Avvo and Yelp are largely positive. One Avvo reviewer, describing a prior negative experience with a different attorney, wrote:

“When I hired Austin Kaplan, he was a godsend compared to the previous attorney. He took over the case and got us on track immediately… he bills very ethically.”

Yelp reviewers reference both Kaplan directly and other attorneys at the firm handling matters when Kaplan was unavailable, describing a positive experience of being seen quickly and treated fairly on consultation pricing. Awesome Attorneys did not identify a specific negative review for this firm at the time of writing; the 25 Yelp reviews and Avvo feedback reviewed skew consistently positive, though this profile notes that as an observation of the record available rather than a claim that no negative experiences exist.

VI. Beyond the Courtroom

Kaplan’s civic involvement is unusually concentrated in Austin municipal governance for a practicing litigator: chairing the City of Austin’s Ethics Commission is a direct, non-marketing civic role rather than a bar-association title. His pro bono leadership (chairing the Austin Bar’s Pro Bono Committee) and the firm’s origin in an unpaid, high-visibility civil rights matter both point toward a practice that treats public-interest work as core rather than peripheral, even though the firm today primarily bills hourly and contingency clients.

VII. Recognition

Peer-reviewed and independently conferred credentials: Texas Board of Legal Specialization certification in Labor and Employment Law for Austin Kaplan; Super Lawyers selection (Kaplan personally, plus recognition extending to four attorneys at the firm per Super Lawyers’ own firm directory) via Thomson Reuters’ peer-review process, including an earlier Rising Star designation for Kaplan.

Locally conferred and civic recognition, distinguished here rather than blended in: the 2016 Austin Under 40 “Austinite of the Year” award and Texas Bar Foundation Fellowship. These reflect real institutional standing but are not the same evidentiary weight as TBLS board certification.

VIII. The Texas Legal Backdrop

Texas is an at-will employment state: an employer can generally end a job for any reason or no reason, subject to specific statutory and common-law exceptions. Federal anti-discrimination law (Title VII, the ADA, the ADEA) covers employers with 15 or more workers (20 or more for age claims) and generally requires an EEOC filing before a lawsuit can proceed. Texas runs a parallel track under the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act, Texas Labor Code Chapter 21, requiring a Texas Workforce Commission charge within 180 days of the alleged act.

For this firm’s whistleblower practice specifically, the federal False Claims Act allows private individuals (relators) to sue on the government’s behalf over fraud against federal programs and share in any recovery, with its own procedural requirements including filing under seal and government notification. Wage claims separately run through the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (two-year limitations period, three years for willful violations) and the Texas Payday Act, Texas Labor Code Chapter 61. Texas common law also recognizes a narrow exception to at-will employment from Sabine Pilot Service, Inc. v. Hauck (Tex. 1985): an employer may not fire a worker solely for refusing to commit an illegal act.

IX. Awesome Attorneys Assessment: Weighing This Austin Employment Lawyer

Kaplan Law Firm’s clearest differentiator is the combination of board-certified employment law credentials with a genuine, independently documented civil rights track record and a specialized whistleblower/qui tam practice most general employment boutiques don’t build out. The 2015 Hood County matter is a meaningfully verified data point precisely because it was covered by multiple independent news outlets rather than resting solely on the firm’s own telling.

The fair caveat: outside that one well-documented 2015 case, Awesome Attorneys could not independently verify specific case values for the firm’s more recent employment and whistleblower work, which is common in this practice area given settlement confidentiality but does mean readers are relying more heavily on the firm’s own characterization of its current caseload than on outside verification. Client reviews are positive but relatively few in number (roughly 25 on Yelp) for a firm with a multi-attorney team.

X. Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was compiled from the firm’s own website (kaplanlawatx.com), including its About and practice-area pages; independent press coverage of the 2015 Hood County litigation from the Texas Tribune, Courthouse News Service, and the Austin Chronicle; the Texas Board of Legal Specialization’s certification standards; client reviews on Avvo and Yelp; and Super Lawyers’ peer-review firm and attorney profiles. Case results, client counts, and awards are the firm’s own published claims unless independently sourced and attributed as such. Client testimonials are excerpts of real, publicly posted reviews. Statutory citations were checked against the Texas Labor Code and the federal False Claims Act. No case results, credentials, or quotes were invented.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

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