Berg & Androphy

Attorney DAvid H. Berg

David Berg In The News

Background
David Berg is a member of the Texas and New York Bar Associations, and the founding partner of Berg & Androphy, the Houston-based trial boutique. David has tried virtually every kind of civil and criminal case to a verdict, from murder to patent infringement. He has won hundreds of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements and recently obtained an unprecedented settlement, representing the City of Houston, pro bono, with Texas Petrochemicals LP, to halve its production of the carcinogen, 1,3 butadiene–ending its effect on surrounding neighborhoods.

Beginning in 2005, David acted as lead trial counsel for Deutsche Bank in the Enron Class Action, along with his colleague, Larry Byrne, of Linklater. The case ended in 2006 when United States District Judge Melinda Harmon dismissed the case against Deutsche Bank. In ’06, David and a team of B&A lawyers represented XO Communications’ Special Committee in the Delaware Courts in a case involving a disputed asset sale. David also represented a high-ranking executive of a Fortune 500 company during an SEC investigation and civil litigation regarding alleged options backdating. Currently, David represents Stanford Holdings as lead trial counsel in a case seeking specific performance regarding the sale of three buildings within Houston’s Galleria. The district judge denied summary judgment and the case is scheduled for trial in mid ’09. David also obtained specific performance of a 1998 contract of sale for the purchaser of 10 acres on the ocean in Sagaponack, New York. That decision is currently on appeal. Currently, B&A is investigating corporate and individual claims related to the sub-prime market.

David has been recognized for years in BEST LAWYERS IN AMERICA, most recently, in four trial specialties: Bet-the-Company Litigation, Business Litigation, Civil Litigation and White Collar Defense. He is a frequent CLE lecturer on trial skills for such organizations as the ABA, the ABA Litigation Section and the Texas Bar Association. David is a frequent contributor to legal and other periodicals on wide-ranging topics. His 2003 book, THE TRIAL LAWYER: WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN, has become one of the ABA’s best-selling books.

Early career
In 1970, eighteen months after opening his law office, David argued and won a case in the United States Supreme Court, reversing his client's conviction for his part in an anti-war demonstration, striking down a federal statute prohibiting the wearing of “distinctive parts of an armed forces uniform” and legitimizing "guerrilla theater" as a form of protest (United States v. Schacht , 90 S.Ct. 1555; 398 U.S. 58). In the following years, he tried and won many other civil rights and criminal cases. In 1978, using the battered wife defense for the first time in Texas, he won an acquittal for a woman accused of murdering her husband and transporting his dismembered body across the country in the trunk of her car. In the early eighties, he acted as co-counsel with Morris Dees, founder of The Southern Poverty Law Center, in obtaining an injunction shutting down the Ku Klux Klan's paramilitary training and prohibiting them from harassing Vietnamese fishermen along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Publications
In addition to his book, Berg has published dozens of articles and essays on legal and political topics in such publications as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Litigation Magazine and The Houston Chronicle.

Civic Activities
Since 2000, David has served as Chairman of the Board of the Houston Area Water Corporation, a municipal corporation charged with negotiating and awarding the contract for the builder/operator of a regional water purification plant, a $135 million project to secure a safe water supply in the region. In 2001, David and his wife, Kathryn, commissioned a children’s opera from St. Exupery’s THE LITTLE PRINCE, which won widespread acclaim after its opening at the Houston Grand Opera, and has played in London, New York and San Francisco. In 2002, Berg received the Theatreworks USA Goodworks Award, in New York, in recognition of his contributions to that group, which brings theater to children. In 2006, Mayor Bill White enlisted David to handle pollution suits on a pro bono basis for the City of Houston. That same year, David became one the first honorees of the Houston Shakespeare Festival, receiving the Willie Award for his longtime service on that board.

In years past, Berg has served on the Board of Directors of Camp for All, which successfully raised $10 million to erect a barrier-free facility for seriously ill children. He has been a Member of the University of Houston Law Foundation, Houston Holocaust Museum, and the Tulane University President's Council. David has been a member of Mensa since 1953.

David has served as special counsel for the Texas State Bar Commission on Lawyer Discipline, a pro bono group that prosecutes lawyer misconduct.

Bar Associations
Berg is a member of the New York and Texas Bar Associations and a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.

Personal
David has three children, Geoff, a trial lawyer, Gabe, a novelist, and Caitlin, a cat veterinarian to be and eleven-year old. David is married to Kathryn Page Berg, also a lawyer.