Attorney Profiles > David H. Berg

David H. Berg
Partner

David Berg In The News

Background
David Berg is a member of the Texas and New York Bar Associations, and the founding partner of Berg & Androphy, the Houston-based trial boutique. David has tried virtually every kind of civil and criminal case to a verdict, from murder to patent infringement. He has won hundreds of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements and recently obtained an unprecedented settlement, representing the City of Houston, pro bono, with Texas Petrochemicals LP, to halve its production of the carcinogen, 1,3 butadiene–ending its effect on surrounding neighborhoods. David has also represented Fortune 500 Corporations and members of their boards of directors, in business litigation, securities and patent cases. Most recently, Most recently, David represented the Special Committee of a publicly traded corporation in a dispute involving its conduct during an asset sale. He also was co-lead trial counsel, along with his colleague now at Linklater, Larry Byrne, for Deutsche Bank, a defendant in the Enron class action

David has been recognized for years in BEST LAWYERS IN AMERICA, most recently, in four trial specialties: Bet-the-Company Litigation, Business Litigation, Civil Litigation and White Collar Defense. He is a frequent CLE lecturer on trial skills for such organizations as the ABA, the ABA Litigation Section and the Texas Bar Association. David is a frequent contributor to legal and other periodicals on wide-ranging topics. His 2003 book, THE TRIAL LAWYER: WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN, has become one of the ABA’s best-selling books.

Early career
In 1970, eighteen months after opening his law office, David argued and won a case in the United States Supreme Court, reversing his client's conviction for his part in an anti-war demonstration, striking down a federal statute prohibiting the wearing of “distinctive parts of an armed forces uniform” and legitimizing "guerrilla theater" as a form of protest (United States v. Schacht , 90 S.Ct. 1555; 398 U.S. 58). In the following years, he tried and won many other civil rights and criminal cases. In 1978, using the battered wife defense for the first time in Texas, he won an acquittal for a woman accused of murdering her husband and transporting his dismembered body across the country in the trunk of her car. In the early eighties, he acted as co-counsel with Morris Dees, founder of The Southern Poverty Law Center, in obtaining an injunction shutting down the Ku Klux Klan's paramilitary training and prohibiting them from harassing Vietnamese fishermen along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Publications
In addition to his book, Berg has published dozens of articles and essays on legal and political topics in such publications as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Litigation Magazine and The Houston Chronicle.

Civic Activities
Since 2000, David has served as Chairman of the Board of the Houston Area Water Corporation, a municipal corporation charged with negotiating and awarding the contract for the builder/operator of a regional water purification plant, a $135 million project to secure a safe water supply in the region. In 2001, David and his wife, Kathryn, commissioned a children’s opera from St. Exupery’s THE LITTLE PRINCE, which won worldwide acclaim after its opening at the Houston Grand Opera, and has played in London and New York and will open in San Francisco in Spring, 2008. In 2002, Berg was presented with the Theatreworks USA Goodworks Award, in New York, in recognition of his contributions to that group, which brings theater to children. In 2006, Mayor Bill White enlisted David to handle pollution suits on a pro bono basis for the City of Houston. That same year, David became one the first honorees of the Houston Shakespeare Festival, receiving the Willie Award for his longtime service on that board.

In years past, Berg has served on the Board of Directors of Camp for All, which successfully raised $10 million to erect a barrier-free facility for seriously ill children, University of Houston Law Foundation, Houston Holocaust Museum, and the Tulane University President's Council. David has been a member of Mensa since 1958.

David has served as special counsel for the Texas State Bar Commission on Lawyer Discipline, a pro bono group that prosecutes lawyer misconduct.

Bar Associations
Berg is a member of the New York and Texas Bar Associations and a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.

Personal
David has three children, Geoff, a trial lawyer, Gabe, a novelist, and Caitlin, a cat trainer, budding actress and ten-year old. David is married to Kathryn Page Berg, also a lawyer.