Thomas M. Melsheimer

Thomas M. Melsheimer is a trial lawyer and managing partner of Winston & Strawn LLP's Dallas office. As a student at The University of Texas School of Law in Austin, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1986, he served as a member of the Texas Law Review and was selected to Chancellors, the top honor society at the UT School of Law. Following law school, Melsheimer served as a clerk for the Hon. Homer Thornberry at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

Melsheimer has been included on the Best Lawyers in America List from 2007 to 2016. He was recognized as a Trial Ace by Law360 and was one of 50 accomplished attorneys named for 2015 nationally. Also in 2015, Melsheimer was named to the IAM Patent 1000: The World’s Leading Patent Professionals. He has been named a "Best Lawyer in Dallas" by D Magazine since 2002. In 2014, he was named the Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Texas chapters of the American Board of Trial Advocates (TEX-ABOTA). He also was named the Dallas Bar Association Trial Lawyer of the Year for 2014, becoming the youngest recipient of the annual award since the DBA was founded in 1873. In November 2014, the legal publication Law360 named Melsheimer as one of the country's top attorneys in securities law matters, recognizing him and five other lawyers from across the U.S. as "Securities MVPs" for 2014. Melsheimer also has been named one of the top intellectual property law attorneys in Texas by the publishers of Chambers USA since 2012. Melsheimer has been named to the annual Texas Super Lawyers listing every year since 2003 by Super Lawyers and Thomson Reuters.

Melsheimer's courtroom wins include numerous commercial litigation cases, as well as high-stakes patent infringement disputes. Melsheimer has served as lead counsel or co-counsel in five separate cases recognized by The National Law Journal among the nation's Top Verdicts of the Year in 1998, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009. His clients include a variety of high-net-worth individuals and notable corporations, including the Dallas Mavericks and owner Mark Cuban, Microsoft, Bank of America, and Texas Instruments, among others.

Melsheimer's work in intellectual property and patent infringement cases includes representing Microsoft in multiple jury trials in the company’s long-running patent litigation against Alcatel-Lucent.

In 2009, Melsheimer served as co-lead counsel for a group of investors who won a $178.7 million breach-of-contract verdict against NL Industries and Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, the company's CEO.

In 2013, Melsheimer served as lead trial counsel in the successful defense of Texas billionaire Mark Cuban in an insider trading fraud lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The three-week trial concluded on October 16, 2013, when jurors in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a unanimous verdict clearing Cuban of all claims filed by the SEC. In 2014, Melsheimer and Cuban co-authored an opinion column titled "How the Feds Rig Their Prosecutions," which criticized the SEC's conduct during its case against Cuban.

In 2011, Melsheimer successfully defended the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks and team owner Mark Cuban in a lawsuit where minority owner Ross Perot Jr. accused Cuban of mismanaging the team.

In 2012, Melsheimer represented whistleblower Allen Jones in a fraud lawsuit against pharmaceutical manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and the company's Janssen division. The case was resolved during the first week of trial in January 2012 when Johnson & Johnson and Janssen agreed to pay a $158 million settlement, the largest Medicaid fraud settlement in Texas history and the second-largest settlement in Texas during 2012. Melsheimer's role in the case against Johnson & Johnson, including his work during the trial, was featured as part of a 15-chapter article authored by legal journalist Steven Brill and published by the Huffington Post in 2015.

Prior to his work in private practice, Melsheimer was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. He helped prosecute Danny Faulkner and other defendants in the long-running criminal prosecutions tied to the "I-30 Condo Scandal". Melsheimer helped earn convictions for seven I-30 defendants, including two trials where he served as lead prosecutor.

• Stephen D. Susman & Thomas M. Melsheimer, "Trial By Agreement: A Professional Approach Improves Results and Saves the Jury System", Texas Bar Journal (October 2015).
• "A Response to 'The Collapse of the Jury Trial'", The Jury Expert: The Art and Science of Litigation Advocacy, August 28, 2015.
• Mark Cuban & Thomas M. Melsheimer, "It is time to rein in the SEC", The Washington Post, December 19, 2014.
• Stephen D. Susman & Thomas M. Melsheimer, Trial by Agreement: How Trial Lawyers Hold the Key to Improving Jury Trials in Civil Cases, 32 REV. LITIG. 431 (2013).
• "Tom Melsheimer and Craig Smith: Scouts' tentative decision fails leadership challenge", The Dallas Morning News, April 25, 2013.
• "Privacy laws evolving in new era of technology", Houston Chronicle, March 23, 2012.
• "Trial's Over, But Issues Remain", Preston Hollow People newspaper, October 7, 2011.
• "Businesses' Fear of U.S. Jury System Is Irrational", Houston Chronicle, July 30, 2011.
• "Guest Column: Why 'Loser Pays' is a Loser", The Dallas Morning News, May 13, 2011.
• "Melsheimer and Smith: Hybrid bill offers best blueprint for Texas judicial selection", The Dallas Morning News, March 14, 2011.
• "Melsheimer & Smith: Cornyn uses politics as law enforcement roadblock in Texas", Statesman.com, June 4, 2010.
• "Thomas Melsheimer: Pope's first step to restoring my faith", The Dallas Morning News, May 14, 2010.
• "Smith and Melsheimer: We’re all better for Merrill Hartman", The Dallas Morning News, October 25, 2010.
• "Campaign contributions: Financing order in the court", originally appeared in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 20, 2010.
• "Trashing Supreme Court not appropriate for Obama", Houston Chronicle, March 2, 2010.
• "Web-savvy Jurors Create New Problem for Courts", Houston Chronicle, June 21, 2009.
• "Melsheimer and Smith: One crime but not the other?" The Dallas Morning News, December 5, 2008.