Seth Hopkins
Managing Counsel/Appellate Litigator/Instructor

Seth Hopkins serves as a member of the Senior Leadership Team in the nation’s third-largest county attorney’s office. He litigated 60 high-profile appeals in the United States Supreme Court, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Texas Supreme Court and directly managed 30 attorneys and paralegals defending 500 employment, tort, real estate, and civil rights cases. He handles special projects such as developing a $5.95 million program to make local government more transparent and improve court appearance rates for criminal defendants by working with County stakeholders to create videos to be shown to 100,000 arrestees per year and developing MyHarrisCountyCase.com to make court records easier to access and understand.

 

Prior to serving Harris County, he represented private clients in complex commercial, employment, contract, intellectual property, environmental, wrongful death, and civil rights cases. ​Seth also: ​

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• Prevailed in the longest single-client Title II Americans with Disabilities Act case in history (requiring that a public university correct 15,000 ADA violations at a cost of nearly $14 million).  The appellate court referred to Hopkins as "eloquent," "truly devoted," "gallant," and presenting a "well-orchestrated case worthy of emulation by the most seasoned attorneys" for his "superior performance" in a "rare and exceptional" case. Covington v. McNeese, 98 So.3d 414 (La.App. 3 Cir. 9/5/12).  

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• Represented a man who served 31 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.  He spent more time in prison than any other innocent man in Texas history.  Helped to negotiate an approximately $5 million settlement (half cash and half annuity) - the largest of its kind in Texas - after the Innocence Project secured his release.   

 

• Assisted in representing clients in numerous multi-million dollar disputes involving oilfield assets, employment and shareholder disputes, premise liability, products liability, legal malpractice, insurance matters, and antitrust. Maintained a small transactional practice for commercial clients, non-profits, professional athletes, and entertainers.

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• Taught Appellate Advocacy and Alternative Dispute Resolution at two law schools and coached nationally competitive moot court teams. Developed undergraduate Constitutional Law course and taught courses in Constitutional Law, Legal Ethics, Intellectual Property, Torts, Contracts, Economics, and Writing.
   

• Served as a law clerk for an Article III federal judge, the U.S. Attorney's Office, Louisiana Attorney General's Office, and nine judges of the Louisiana Fourteenth Judicial District. ​

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• Served as a White House, U.S. Senate, and Congressional intern.

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• Served on editorial board of Louisiana Bar Journal and edited a local bar journal and weekly newspaper.