Tom Melsheimer is described as “one of the most sought after trial lawyers in the country” by American Lawyer’s publishers, “a celebrated storyteller” by the magazine’s founder, and a “game-changing ringer” by another national legal publication, Tom is the all-too-rare true trial lawyer—one who can try any case, in any venue, whatever the claims or subject matter. He has remarkably broad and comprehensive jury trial experience. He has tried civil cases involving breach of contract, business torts and fraud, trade secret, patent, antitrust, securities, oil and gas accounting, product liability/mass tort, and qui tam claims. He also has tried criminal cases involving antitrust, healthcare fraud, bank fraud, public corruption, and kidnapping. Tom is the author of a widely acclaimed book on trying cases before a jury, On the Jury Trial, now in its second edition. Legendary trial lawyer and law professor Mike Tigar has called it a “book every lawyer should read.”
Tom is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and he is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates. He has been recognized for his litigation prowess by numerous outside ranking organizations and publications, including Chambers USA, Chambers Global, Benchmark Litigation US, The Best Lawyers in America®, Best Lawyers Texas, Lawdragon, Super Lawyers, and The Legal 500 US. In August 2024, Tom was named as a finalist for The National Law Journal’s 2024 National Winning Litigators award. In 2025, he made the inaugural list of Bloomberg’s “Unrivaled” litigators series. in the 2026 edition of Chambers, Tom is one of a handful of trial lawyers in the country and the only one in Texas who has been recognized as “Band 1” by Chambers in five different categories including Commercial Litigation, White Collar, and Intellectual Property.
Tom tries lawsuits in state and federal courts before both judges and juries and involving civil claims and criminal charges. On the civil side, he has tried to verdict cases involving commercial, business tort, fraud, product liability, mass tort, securities, antitrust, patent infringement, trade secrets, and qui tam/FCA claims. On the criminal side, he has tried to verdict cases involving healthcare fraud, bank fraud, public corruption, copyright infringement, aggravated sexual assault, and kidnapping. Tom’s jury trials include successfully representing plaintiffs and defendants all over the U.S. and throughout Texas.
Prior to joining private practice, Tom served as a federal prosecutor in Dallas. He successfully prosecuted the largest bank fraud case ever undertaken in Texas, and he obtained one of the largest RICO verdicts in Texas history. During his time as an Assistant United States Attorney, the Department of Justice honored Tom as one of the nation’s top prosecutors.
Major Cases:
In 2026, Tom was lead trial counsel for ExxonMobil, and its former officers, including former CEO Rex Tillerson, in the extraordinarily rare jury trial of a securities class action alleging damages in the range of $3 billion. After a three week jury trial in Dallas federal court, the jury returned a complete defense verdict for ExxonMobil. The case is among a handful of defense securities class action wins in a jury trial since the turn of the century.
In 2025, Tom was lead counsel in the public corruption retrial of Dallas developer Ruel Hamilton, who had previously been convicted and sentenced to seven years incarceration. In the retrial, following reversal of his earlier conviction, Tom obtained a complete acquittal on all charges.
In 2023, Tom was lead trial counsel in defense of Alphatec in a bitter dispute with medical device rival Nuvasive, involving allegations that Alphatec tortiously interfered with NuVasive’s distributor agreements and that it also interfered with its agreements with sales representatives in certain states. In a nearly 3-month trial in California Superior Court in San Diego, he helped achieve a resounding victory by successfully defeating NuVasive Inc.’s $49 million actual damages claim (and multiples of that in alleged punitive damages).
In August 2023, Tom led a team that prevailed for U.S. Well Services (USWS) in patent infringement litigation brought by competitor Halliburton relating to hydraulic fracturing software and methods and physical systems related to the operation of USWS’s fracturing sites. Tom won a complete defense jury verdict finding of no infringement by the client and that two asserted patents were invalid. The verdict cleared USWS of Halliburton’s infringement allegations and a damages demand of over $76 million.
In 2022, Tom represented Kent Thiry, former CEO of Fortune 500 company DaVita, Inc., in a first-of-its-kind criminal antitrust case alleging horizontal market allocation in the labor market. After an eight-day trial in federal court in Colorado, the jury acquitted Thiry on all counts. Many opined the win would influence whether the Department of Justice would continue to pursue enforcement allegations in antitrust matters involving labor-market collusion and, as it turns out, the DOJ has largely abandoned this theory of prosecution.
After a seven-week jury trial in 2019, for his client Dr. Nick Nicholson, Tom successfully obtained the sole acquittal in a 21-defendant federal healthcare fraud case involving allegations of $40 million in bribes and kickbacks. The so-called Forest Park case was the largest healthcare fraud investigation ever undertaken by federal authorities in Texas.
Tom represented dialysis giant Fresenius in 12,000 wrongful death cases arising out of an alleged failure to warn of risks associated with a Fresenius medical device called Granuflo. In the first state court bellwether trial in Massachusetts, Tom obtained a defense verdict that ultimately led to a favorable resolution of all the cases.
Tom was lead trial counsel for billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban in the widely publicized insider trading case brought by the SEC. The jury cleared Mr. Cuban of any wrongdoing following a three-week trial in Dallas federal court. Tom has represented Mr. Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks, and other Cuban business interests since 2000.
Tom and co-counsel from the Texas Attorney General’s office helped the State of Texas secure the largest Medicaid fraud settlement in Texas history. The $158 million settlement reached during trial followed claims of illegal marketing practices associated with the prescription drug Risperdal®. His work in the case was featured in a 15-part series authored by acclaimed legal journalist Steven Brill and published by the Huffington Post in 2015.
Tom’s $178 million jury trial win on behalf of the plaintiff Martin in Martin v. NL Industries, et al., included nearly $150 million in punitive damages. The jury award in the breach of fiduciary duty case was named one of the “Top Verdicts of 2009” by The National Law Journal, in addition to being recognized as one of the year’s three largest verdicts in Texas and the year’s largest verdict in Dallas County. On four other occasions, Tom’s cases have been recognized by NLJ among the nation’s top cases, including the defense of a qui tam action involving a government contract where his clients defeated a claim of fraudulent overpayment and won their affirmative claim that they had been underpaid.
