Collyn A. Peddie, Attorney

Collyn is responsible for formulating and implementing both trial and appellate strategy, and handling appeals in state and federal court. A successful trial lawyer for more than a dozen years on both the plaintiffs' and defense sides, Collyn has spent the last decade using those skills to develop a unique appellate advocacy practice that maximizes the chances of winning both at trial and on appeal.

Education

• Graduated with honors from Rice University with a triple major in 1979
  • Phi Beta Kappa
• Graduated with honors from the National Law Center at George Washington University in 1982
  • Topics/Notes Editor for the George Washington Journal of International Law and Economics

Experience

• Law Clerk to the Honorable John R. Brown, Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 1982-83.
• First woman litigator ever named Shareholder/Vice President of a major Dallas-based law firm with over 250 lawyers.
• Co-chair of the Appellate Advocacy Practice Group of a New York-based international law firm with over 750 lawyers.
• Author of numerous articles and speaker at continuing legal education seminars. Taught as Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center.

Representative cases

• Successfully handled plaintiff's firm's role in ground-breaking securities fraud lawsuit for over 5,000 individual investors.
• Represented the Conference of Chief Justices (comprised of chief justices of all 50 states' highest courts) in an appeal involving Texas' funding of legal services for the poor.
• Successfully upheld a jury verdict and injunction in landmark tortious interference lawsuit and retained ground-breaking punitive damages award, one of only a handful of such awards upheld that term.
• Successfully handled first-ever appeal under Texas parental notification statute.

Collyn is "AV" rated by Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory based upon confidential surveys of Houston's legal community. She received the "very high to preeminent" rating of legal ability and the "very high" rating of ethical standards, the highest ratings given in both categories.

A native Houstonian, Collyn has actively served for more than twenty years in leadership positions for a variety of local, state and national charitable, political, and bar organizations.