Michael H. Collins

Mike Collins tries cases. He personally learns the client's needs and goals and most importantly the case facts, and develops a strategy to obtain the best result possible for the client. He forms an appropriate team, as lean as reasonable, to minimize client cost and maximize team efficiency. Mike's team then prepares cases for trial or hearing, which also provides a position of strength should settlement talks occur.

Mike's clients have included businesses in the energy, insurance, transportation, franchise, construction and real estate, museum and nonprofit, IP and university sectors. He has handled almost every type of substantive and procedural claim, including contract breach, business and personal torts, RICO, DTPA and class actions.

Mike has handled well over 20 major arbitrations, most involving multi-week evidentiary hearings. He was lead counsel for TUCO in a Texas case establishing the standard for vacating awards on "evident partiality" grounds, and he was lead counsel in an AAA class action proceeding. He now also serves as an AAA arbitrator on commercial and consumer cases.

Mike served as Managing Partner of the Firm's London office from early 2015 to December 2017. The legal needs of many businesses are global, and he can help provide guidance in a multijurisdictional world.

Mike’s experience includes the representation of:

• An oil and gas company defending against a nine-figure royalty claim, through jury trial and appeal
• An oil and gas company in multimillion-dollar claims for title defects in minerals purchased in West Virginia and Pennsylvania
• A national overnight cartage company in arbitrations on claims brought by independent contractors
• A coal company in defense of multimillion-dollar claim for price increase on long-term coal supply contract
• A major insurance company, primarily on commercial and employment matters, but also on bad faith claims
• A major university, including on tenure disputes and discrimination and other employment claims
• A major software company on former employees' claims of wrongful termination
• Overturned adverse Maryland arbitration award in Texas courts, with nine figures at stake, involving contracts with railroads for transporting coal
• A museum and other nonprofit organizations as outside general counsel