Alexander D. Burch

Alexander's practice is focused on civil trial and appellate litigation. He is highly experienced in representing clients in disputes across various industries, including oilfield services, private equity, pharmaceutical co-development agreements, product-liability, manufacturing, construction, and telecommunications. He routinely assists business owners with complex valuation, investment fraud, fiduciary duty disputes, protection of intellectual property rights, catastrophic injury defense, and insurance coverage disputes.

Alexander also regularly pursues declaratory relief in state and federal courts to clarify indemnity, defense and additional insured rights in oil and gas contracts.

• Represented Oklahoma oil and gas company as insured asserting multi-million-dollar breach of insurance agreement, breach of broker agreement, bad faith coverage, and fraud claims against insurer and insurance broker relating to unpaid commercial general liability claims. After several years of contentious litigation, the case settled favorably the day before trial for the full coverage amount sought by client.
• Represented Russian national as counsel of record in the United States Supreme Court and lead appellate counsel in the Ninth Circuit Court in contentious case that spanned nearly a decade and clarified the law regarding a foreign person's standing to bring civil RICO claims to enforce a USD 150 million arbitration award under the New York Convention. After obtaining favorable rulings from both the Ninth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court, the client received a favorable settlement.
• Represented poultry manufacturer in case involving competing breach of contract claims. Obtained appellate reversal of trial court take-nothing judgment on client’s successful verdict on its contract claim in the trial court and entry of new judgment that awarded client substantial damages and attorney's fees.
• Represent publicly traded oil and gas drilling company as lead trial and/or managing counsel in numerous catastrophic injury cases throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, West Virginia, and New Mexico. Cases regularly include contractual indemnity disputes.
• Obtained a favorable plaintiff's jury verdict and judgment of over USD 72 million for a publicly traded energy-services client in a six-week trial on claims for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and conspiracy in a case involving an extensive oilfield kickback scheme relating to hundreds of millions of dollars in international transactions. As lead appellate counsel, defeated two separate mandamus petitions that resulted in a favorable appellate opinion rejecting a defendant's Fifth Amendment privilege assertions and affirming an order compelling the discovery of key evidence in the case.
• Defended on appeal a trial court's dismissal of a software products and services contract dispute on the parties' contractual forum-selection clause. The court of appeals, relying solely on the briefing, rejected the appellant's arguments and affirmed the trial court's enforcement of the forum-selection clause and case dismissal.
• Successfully defended on appeal a USD 4 million judgment in favor of the client, in a breach of warranty and product liability action brought against a manufacturer of casing connections which failed during hydraulic fracturing operations of the client's horizontal well. Based on the appellate briefing, the court of appeals unanimously rejected each of the several complex issues raised by the appellant.
• Successfully defended on appeal the summary dismissal of a personal injury action brought against a client manufacturer involving product liability claims to multi-piece wheel assemblies installed on a commercial tractor.
• Obtained favorable opinion from the Supreme Court of Texas reversing lower appellate court's opinion and clarifying law regarding Texas municipality immunity from suit. The Supreme Court's reversal saved the client's payment dispute against the City of San Antonio relating to the installation of pollution control devices at a city-operated, coal-fired power plant.
• Obtained summary dismissal of action against an airline involving contract claims related to the airline's frequent-flyer program and successfully defended the district court's judgment on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
• Obtained a reversal in Texas appellate court from the trial court's dismissal on jurisdictional grounds of the client's USD 1 billion tax valuation dispute. The result reinstated the client's dispute for consideration on the merits.
• Defended Texas state agency on appeal before the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in an employee's qui tam action under the Federal False Claims Act.
• Drafted appellate briefing that resulted in the court affirming the district court's judgment for the agency and an opinion clarifying state agency liability under the False Claims Act.

• American Bar Association
• Houston Bar Association