Larry R. Veselka

In more than thirty-eight years of practice, Mr. Veselka has tried fifty-plus jury trials to verdict.  He has briefed and argued some fifty appeals before the Texas Courts of Appeals, the Texas Supreme Court, the Wyoming Supreme Court, and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits. Mr. Veselka has handled cases pertaining to oil and gas, securities, real estate, breach of contract, fraud, RICO, professional liability, and various business torts and statutory claims. He has handled matters throughout Texas, as well as in Arkansas, Colorado, California, Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Washington, D.C. He has advised both insureds and insurers on coverage issues, and has successfully prosecuted claims for coverage and/or bad faith. Mr. Veselka has both prosecuted and defended securities and consumer class actions, as well as shareholder derivative matters. Besides the complex civil cases which predominated in the first twenty years of his practice, Mr. Veselka has handled white-collar criminal matters at the grand jury, pre-trial, trial and appellate stages as well as SEC investigations and prosecutions.

After obtaining his Bachelor of Arts in Economics at Yale University, Mr. Veselka attended the University of Texas Law School where he was a member of the Texas Law Review, graduating with his Juris Doctor in 1976. From January 1973 to August 1976, Mr. Veselka served full-time as Administrative Assistant to Lt. Governor Bill Hobby while attending law school full-time. After graduation, he joined the firm of Vinson & Elkins, LLP, working in their Houston and Washington D.C. offices and is licensed in both Texas and the District of Columbia. He made partner at Vinson & Elkins in 1984. In 1985, he was appointed Regent of Texas Southern University by the Texas Governor and served in that position for six years. Mr. Veselka joined Craig Smyser and Lee Kaplan to form Smyser Kaplan & Veselka, L.L.P., where he continues to win significant victories in trial and on  appeal. He has been named a Texas Super Lawyer each year since 2005, a Local Litigation Star by Benchmark Litigation 2013-2015, and a Litigation Star by Benchmark Appellate in 2013.

Mr. Veselka remains active in the civic and legal communities and is a member of the Texas Southern University Foundation Board, the Houston chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates, and the American Bar Association’s Litigation and Criminal Justice Sections. He is a Texas Bar Foundation Sustaining Life Fellow and a Houston Bar Foundation Fellow, and a former member and one of the founders of the Houston Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society. Mr. Veselka is happily married to his high school sweetheart and remains an active member of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, often teaching Sunday school class.