Courington, Lea F.

In over 30 years as an active litigator, Lea Courington has handled a wide range of cases, ranging from antitrust, securities fraud, trademark, real estate, employment, business tort, and other types of commercial cases to libel and slander, products liability, toxic tort, and professional malpractice cases. Her experience includes both civil cases and the prosecution and defense of white-collar criminal matters. Many of the cases she has litigated have involved scientific, technical, technological, and medical issues, but she has also represented corporations, partnerships, and officers and directors in a variety of cases arising from complex financial and commercial transactions.

Ms. Courington's representation of clients in commercial litigation has included representing a class of subordinated debenture holders in a case against senior secured lenders, holders of trademarks, broker-dealers, software developers, accountants, employers enforcing covenants not to compete and non-disclosure agreements, oil and gas pipeline companies, and real estate developers.

She has represented a blood-banking organization in cases in which it has been alleged that individuals have contracted transfusion-transmitted diseases, including AIDS and hepatitis. In addition, she has represented a defendant in the tobacco industry in all its cases in Texas in which plaintiffs sought to hold the defendants liable for illnesses and conditions allegedly caused by smoking and a defendant in all its cases in Texas in which it is alleged that constituents in welding fumes have caused neurological disorders. Ms. Courington also has represented hospitals and physicians throughout the North Texas area with a focus in more recent years on cases involving catastrophic neurological injuries. She represented one of the two defendants in Irving Health Care System v. Brooks, 927 S.W.2d 12 (Tex. 1996), one of three landmark Texas Supreme Court cases decided on the same date on medical committee/medical peer review committee privileges and has been retained to assist with the assertion and protection of various types of privileges at both the trial and appellate level.

Ms. Courington graduated from Southern Methodist University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, with a B.A. in 1974 and from Duke University School of Law with a J.D. in 1977. She was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in 1977. During the years 1980-81 she was a Trial Attorney with the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice. She is a member of the American Bar Association, the International Association of Defense Counsel, the Texas Association of Defense Counsel, and the Defense Research Institute; is a Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation and the Dallas Bar Foundation; and has served on the State Bar of Texas Administration of the Rules of Evidence Committee. She has written on antitrust issues, and among the seminars at which she has spoken are the State Bar of Texas Advanced Medical Malpractice and the Advanced Civil Trial seminars.

Organizational Involvement: Member, Board of Directors, Duke University School of Law Alumni Association; Co-Chair, Duke University North Texas Women's Forum; Chair, Advisory Board, Archives of Women in the Southwest, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University