BACKGROUND​

 

Neil McCabe, selected to “Texas Super Lawyers” and to "America's Top 100 Personal Injury Lawyers," and highly rated by Martindale-Hubbell, has been an attorney for over 40 years. He served as senior counsel to the legendary trial lawyer John O’Quinn.​​

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Mr. McCabe was recruited to the University of Texas at Austin on a track scholarship. While there, he co-authored an article in a scholarly national journal before graduating with honors. He then taught in secondary schools before and during his time in law school.​

 

As a law student Mr. McCabe won awards for best speaker at state, regional, and national competitions. He received the American College of Trial Lawyers Medal for Excellence in Advocacy; induction into the Order of Barristers; and the George T. Barrow Award for the student "who, in the opinion of the Dean, will become an outstanding attorney." He also worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office and later for the noted criminal defense lawyer Clyde Woody, for whom he wrote a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. After graduating from South Texas College of Law in Houston, Mr. McCabe served as a briefing attorney for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and then he returned to his alma mater to become a full-time law professor.​

 

During his twenty years as a professor, Mr. McCabe taught advocacy, procedure, evidence, criminal law, and constitutional law. H​e served on the Texas Supreme Court Jury Task Force. Mr. McCabe received the Vinson & Elkins Award for excellence in teaching, scholarship and contributions to the legal community; the Student Bar Association Teacher Excellence Award; and the Board of Advocates Faculty Service Award. He was the on-air legal analyst for the Houston NBC affiliate and appeared as an expert in many other TV and radio broadcasts in the U.S. and abroad.

 

Mr. McCabe also served as an expert in legal proceedings and represented clients in court, including arguing before seventeen justices at once in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Mr. McCabe's scholarly publications have been cited by courts and academics across the U.S. and around the world. He has been quoted in media outlets on every continent. Since he entered full-time law practice, the Texas State Bar Appellate Section has accorded Mr. McCabe several awards in creative writing competitions.

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Mr. McCabe has handled criminal cases ranging from theft and white collar crime to capital murder. He also has served as a lawyer and an expert in several cases involving attempts to disqualify, discipline, or remove public officials and was instrumental in obtaining a directed verdict of acquittal in the Houston City Hall Bribery Case.

 

The amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief he submitted in the early stages of the Lawrence v. Texas case was reflected in a state court panel opinion that struck down the criminal statute against homosexual conduct, a result later reached by the U.S. Supreme Court.​

 

Mr. McCabe has been involved in cases in the trial and appellate courts of Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Arizona, California, Georgia, and Florida, in the federal circuit courts, in petitions to the United States Supreme Court, and in arbitrations in Houston and London, as well as legal matters in Scotland and the Bahamas.​ He has worked on cases involving airliner crashes in Spain and Venezuela, piracy and abduction of oil rig workers off the coast of Africa, the sinking of an offshore oil rig in Mexican waters, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act as applied to oil concessions in Africa, a dispute over oil and gas interests in Kazakhstan, as well as cases involving building construction, medical malpractice, industrial accidents, automobile wrecks, truck accidents, predatory lending practices, securities fraud and market manipulation, contempt of court, attorney fee disputes, libel and slander, wills, trusts and estates, legal malpractice, inverse condemnation, and other takings of property by the government.​

 

Mr. McCabe was involved in extensive litigation stemming from the deaths of Anna Nicole Smith and her son. He is quoted at length in The Killing of Anna Nicole Smith, a book by Judge Larry Seidlin. He also was an Executive Producer of a legal documentary that won first place at the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival.

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He remains a licensed lawyer but is not currently in active practice, instead spending most of his time in Paris, France, where he works at the Mazarine Library on a book of historical fiction.