ATTORNEY ADVERTISING NOTICE. This profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys’ editorial team. It was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed prior to publication by the firm profiled. All case results, recoveries, and recognitions described below are attributed to their sources. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter. This article is for general information only and is not legal advice; reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship.

REPRESENTATION DISCLOSURE. Nowak & Stauch represents both plaintiffs and defendants across its commercial, construction, and business litigation practice, depending on the engagement. This is standard practice for a full-service commercial litigation firm and is disclosed here directly, consistent with Awesome Attorneys’ editorial policy for adversarial, non-personal-injury practice areas.

Nowak & Stauch, PLLC: The Dallas Business Litigation Attorney Firm That Defended a $50 Million Claim Down to Zero

Nowak & Stauch is a Dallas business litigation attorney boutique co-founded by a former Dallas County prosecutor — one whose defense of a Fortune 500 poultry company against a $50 million supplier lawsuit ended with the jury awarding the plaintiff nothing and the firm’s client $1.1 million instead.

Nowak & Stauch, PLLC — Dallas Business Litigation Attorney At a Glance

Sources: ns-law.net (firm website), Super Lawyers, State Bar of Texas attorney directory. Compiled August 2026.

Origin: A Prosecutor and a Litigator Who Built a Commercial Boutique

Matthew Nowak earned his B.S. in accounting with honors from the University of Denver in 1990, worked for a major accounting firm auditing utility, manufacturing, and oil and gas companies, then earned his J.D. from SMU’s Dedman School of Law in 1995. He spent more than three years as an Assistant District Attorney with the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, litigating over 100 cases before moving to private practice in commercial litigation and personal injury defense. Thomas Stauch, also an SMU Dedman School of Law graduate, was a member of the Phi Delta Phi honors fraternity and served as an editor of The International Lawyer law review. The two co-founded Nowak & Stauch in 2004, and both are AV Preeminent rated by Martindale-Hubbell.

Stauch was added to the American Arbitration Association’s Roster of Arbitrators in 2018 — a credential distinct from litigating cases, since it means outside parties select him to serve as a neutral decision-maker in arbitrated disputes, a form of professional trust separate from being retained as an advocate.

Where the Firm Concentrates

The firm’s practice covers commercial litigation broadly, construction disputes, real estate litigation, business tort claims, and legal malpractice matters. As the disclosure above notes, the firm represents both plaintiffs and defendants across these matters. Readers comparing options can see how this profile fits alongside other Business & Corporate Litigation attorneys covered on Awesome Attorneys.

Notable Work

The firm’s clearest documented result is a defense verdict in Commercial Grains v. Southwest Grain Co., Inc. and Corpus Christi Exchange, Inc. v. Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, tried in the 370th Judicial District Court of Hidalgo County, Texas. Nowak and Stauch defended Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation and its Mexican subsidiary against claims exceeding $50 million for breach of contract, negligence, DTPA violations, products liability, negligent misrepresentation, fraud, conversion, and civil conspiracy. The jury returned a defense verdict of $0 against Pilgrim’s Pride and separately awarded Pilgrim’s Pride $613,000 in actual damages against the grain supplier, plus $475,000 in attorneys’ fees. In a separate matter, Ranger Fire, Inc. v. Emerson Construction Company, Inc. and Western Surety Company (146th Judicial District, Bell County), Nowak represented the subcontractor plaintiff and secured a jury verdict of approximately $400,000 in damages and fees — a result he then successfully defended on appeal before the Third Court of Appeals, which affirmed the verdict. These results are drawn from the firm’s own published case summaries with named parties and cause numbers, which makes them more independently checkable than an unnamed or anonymized case description; as with any litigation result, outcomes are case-specific and past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter.

Client Voice

Awesome Attorneys did not locate a substantial volume of independently-attributed client reviews for this firm at the time of research — the firm’s public marketing centers on named case results and named-party litigation summaries rather than an aggregated testimonial page. This gap is noted directly; prospective clients should ask the firm directly for references appropriate to their matter.

Beyond the Courtroom

The firm’s public profile centers on litigation credentials and Stauch’s AAA arbitrator appointment rather than documented civic board service. Nowak is a member of the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers and the Dallas Bar Association, standard bar memberships rather than leadership or committee-chair roles documented in public sources reviewed for this profile.

Recognition

Both founders’ AV Preeminent ratings from Martindale-Hubbell are peer-reviewed. Nowak and Stauch’s Super Lawyers selections (spanning multiple years, including Rising Star recognitions earlier in their careers) are peer-nomination-based. Stauch’s AAA Roster of Arbitrators appointment is a form of professional trust conferred by an outside neutral-dispute-resolution body, distinct from an advocacy-based award. By contrast, general legal directory listings (Justia, Avvo) are useful for visibility but not equivalent in rigor to peer-review ratings or the arbitrator appointment. Awesome Attorneys did not locate TBLS board certifications for either founder.

Texas Legal Backdrop

Readers considering Texas business or commercial litigation should understand a few structural rules, presented as general information and not legal advice. Breach of contract claims in Texas generally carry a four-year statute of limitations (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.004). Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA) claims — relevant to the firm’s Pilgrim’s Pride defense — generally carry a shorter two-year limitations period (Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 17.565). Construction disputes in Texas may implicate the Texas Prompt Payment Act and mechanic’s and materialman’s lien statutes (Tex. Prop. Code ch. 53), which set specific notice and filing deadlines distinct from ordinary contract claims. Texas also has a specialized Business Court, created by recent legislation, that now handles certain complex commercial disputes above a jurisdictional threshold.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Nowak & Stauch’s differentiator is a genuine, named-party litigation record that includes both a successful high-stakes defense (the Pilgrim’s Pride $50 million claim reduced to zero) and an affirmed plaintiff-side appellate win (the Ranger Fire construction verdict) — evidence the firm can litigate effectively from either side of a commercial dispute, which matters given its mixed-representation practice. For a business facing genuinely high-exposure commercial litigation, that documented two-sided track record is a meaningful differentiator.

The honest trade-off is scale and credential depth: this is a small firm (2–5 attorneys) without TBLS board certification for its named partners, and its public marketing leans on named case summaries rather than a broader base of independently-verifiable client reviews. A business should confirm directly which attorney would handle their specific matter and ask for references beyond the firm’s published case list.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys’ editorial team in August 2026. Primary source: the firm’s own published website (ns-law.net), including its “Cases Tried” page with named parties and cause numbers, and its attorney biography pages. Secondary sources: Super Lawyers and the State Bar of Texas’s public attorney directory, which showed no misconduct on Matthew Nowak’s Texas license. The firm did not commission, pay for, or pre-approve this article. All credentials and claims are attributed to their sources; past results do not guarantee or predict future outcomes. This article is general information, not legal advice.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Facts, figures, and claims in this profile were independently researched from public sources as described in the Methodology & Sourcing section above and are current only as of the research date; they are subject to change without notice, and readers should confirm any detail directly with the firm before relying on it. This notice supplements, and does not replace, the Attorney Advertising Notice at the top of this profile.