Deborah Goodall

Deborah Goodall graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1976 with a degree in Journalism and attended Baylor Law School. In 1982 she began a two-year clerkship with the prominent Dallas criminal defense firm of Burleson, Pate & Gibson.

Based on her position in the top percentage of her class, she was a member of the Baylor Law Review and served as Notes and Comments Editor in 1983. She published "Penal Code Section 22.04: A Duty to Care for the Elderly" in the Baylor Law Review that year. Following graduation, Ms. Goodall received an honorary appointment to serve as a briefing attorney for the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas for a 1-year term.

Recognized Ability to Handle High-Profile Legal Matters

In 1985 she was hired by James A. Rolfe, formerly the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, to join Ravkind, Rolfe & Baccus-Lobel. There she worked with prominent criminal defense attorney Billy Ravkind in representing one of the main defendants in the I-30/Danny Faulkner case, Spencer Blain, owner of Empire Savings and Loan.

Ms. Goodall sat second chair to Mr. Ravkind in the trial of that case and her closing argument to the jury was quoted in the Wall Street Journal.

Ms. Goodall’s other high-profile clients include Don Dixon, owner of Vernon Savings and Loan, one of the largest savings and loan collapses of the 1980s. During her representation of Mr. Dixon, famed Harvard law professor and news commentator Alan Dershowitz assisted Ms. Goodall with Dixon’s criminal appeal and served as "Of Counsel" on her briefs to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

As a result of her work on behalf of Mr. Dixon, Ms. Goodall was the subject of a feature article in the American Bar association publication, The Compleat Lawyer, in 1991.

In 2012 she represented David Cooper and Jasmine Cooper in the Tarrant County felony jury trial widely reported on national and local news as the "squatters’ rights" case, in which they were accused of utilizing existing Texas law to take adverse possession of a house claimed to be abandoned. It was one of the first such trials in the country, and Ms. Goodall won an acquittal for Ms. Cooper and probation for Mr. Cooper, who faced up to life in prison.

Award-Winning Counsel. Superior Client Service.

Ms. Goodall has received the prestigious AV® Preeminent™ Rating by Martindale-Hubbell®, signifying her "preeminence" as a criminal defense lawyer. This specific accolade is considered to be the highest rating offered by the attorney-rating service.

During the past 29+ years she has been quoted in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Houston Chronicle, among others, and her cases have been covered by MSNBC and Fox News as well as local Dallas/Fort Worth stations.

Other Areas of Legal Focus

Although primarily a criminal defense lawyer, Ms. Goodall has also represented nurses and doctors in administrative proceedings before the Texas Nursing and Medical Boards since 1997.

This area of her practice ties in with her defense of those same clients in criminal cases involving substance abuse, including:

Ms. Goodall has served on the Board of NAMI Dallas, the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, since 2011, and represents many people with mental illness in various criminal matters.