Don Wayne Cruse Jr

Over my career, I have worked at a well-regarded corporate law firm, for a state attorney general, and as a judicial law clerk.

I was privileged to begin my career with a one-year clerkship at the Texas Supreme Court, which is Texas's highest court for civil cases. Law clerks help the Court evaluate which of the roughly one thousand petitions filed each year should be granted and also help the Justices write their ultimate opinions.

After that, I worked as a litigator for Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, a prominent New York law firm. While at Wachtell, I worked on a variety of high-stakes commercial disputes. The cases involved complex questions of contract law, insurance coverage, business torts, securities fraud, bankruptcy, antitrust law, and federal regulatory investigations. I was a member of the trial team in IBP, Inc. v. Tyson Foods, a landmark merger case in the Delaware Court of Chancery, and I also worked on the property-insurance lawsuit filed to help rebuild the World Trade Center. Because of my background in technology, I enjoyed my cases involving internet domain names, trademark law, and copyright.

In 2003, I returned to Texas to serve in the Office of Solicitor in the Texas Office of the Attorney General, which handles the State’s most significant appellate cases and offers younger attorneys the chance to step up as lead counsel on their own docket of cases -- an opportunity rare in large firms. As an Assistant Solicitor General, I personally argued before the Texas Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and several Texas state appellate courts, and I also filed written briefs in the United States Supreme Court.

In the Texas Supreme Court, my argued cases included Reata Construction Co. v. City of Dallas, an important case about sovereign immunity in contract cases; NCAA v. Yeo, a case about the due process rights afforded to student athletes; and Texas A&M University v. Koseoglu, a case about suing state officials for breach of a settlement agreement.

In the Fifth Circuit, I was lead counsel for the State of Texas in Allstate v. Abbott, in which Allstate hired former solicitor general Kenneth Starr to attack a state law that limits its expansion into the auto-repair business. I also served as lead counsel in Equal Access for El Paso v. Hawkins, a structural challenge to the Texas Medicaid system.

While at OSG, I also served as the Lead Assistant SG on the Texas redistricting cases arising out of the 2003 congressional map.  I had primary responsibility for coordinating the trial court briefing (at trial and both remand proceedings), as well as merits briefing before the United States Supreme Court in Barrientos v. Texas, No. 03-756 (which was summarily affirmed) and in LULAC v. Perry, No. 05-204 (which was affirmed on all districts but one).

At the end of 2007, I took the next step in my career by starting my own appellate practice in Austin.