Steven C. Levatino

Steven is rated as an AV Preeminent® attorney.  AV Preeminent® is a significant rating accomplishment - a testament to the fact that a Steven’s peers rank him at the highest level of professional ability and ethical standards. Steven and also been elected as a Fellow to the Texas Bar Foundation.  Membership in the foundation is reserved for the top 1/3 of  1% of Texas attorneys.  Election to the Fellows is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a member of the State Bar of Texas.

He has a wide breadth of experience in business law, litigation, and church law.  Steven practiced as a partner in one of the largest firms in Texas for 13 years.  In early 2008, Steven and Joel Pace started the law firm of Levatino|Pace, LLP.  Law Partner Andrew MacRae joined Steven and Joel in 2010.

Steven specializes in general civil litigation, including business and commercial disputes, as well as personal injury, business law, insurance, religious, and construction law.  Steven is also a certified mediator.  For more information on mediation, go to .

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Steven serves as outside counsel to various businesses in the Central Texas area. The businesses range from small to large corporations.  He assists them with issues including corporate formation, contracts, shareholder/partnership agreements, buy-in and buy out agreements, business sales, corporate governance, employment issues, contracts, commercial transactions, collections, commercial litigation, and the numerous other issues affecting business on a day to day basis. Steven also has experience with issues involving receivership, bankruptcy, grand juries, and securities violations.

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Steven has tried hundreds of jury and non-jury case and 1st chaired more than 40 jury trials in state and federal courts.  He has also tried appellate cases before the third court of appellate courts and the Fifth Circuit.

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Steven is familiar with the sensitive issues of church interaction with the secular culture.   He has represented churches and clergy (including bishops and an archbishop) in their official and individual capacity in litigation.  He has also tried church litigation cases before state and federal courts and successfully defended the Church on the seminal 1st Amendment ministerial exception case in the United States Federal Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit (Cannata v. St. John Neumann Catholic Church, et al., 5th Circuit).    He was the primary architect for one of the largest corporate restructurings of the Catholic Church in the United States.

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In assisting businesses, individuals, churches, non-profits, and their affiliated entities he has been involved in litigation, incorporation, foundations, contract negotiation, corporate governance issues, implementation of safety policies, investigations, background checks, construction, employment matters, first amendment issues, tax-exempt bonds, audits, financial malfeasance investigations, and numerous other issues affecting these organizations on a daily basis.

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Steven studied law at both South Texas College of Law and the University Of Texas School Of Law.   He received his J.D. in December 1990 from South Texas College of Law.  In Steven’s final year of law school he was privileged to serve as a law clerk for Justice Oscar Mauzy of the Texas Supreme Court.

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Steven received his B.B.A. in finance from the University of Texas at Austin in 1988. While at the University of Texas he was active in several organizations including Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity and the University of Texas Cowboys. He is a UT fan and as a student designed and raised the money for the cannon (Old Smokey) still used by the Cowboys at the University of Texas football games and other campus related events.

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