Archives: Attorneys

For over 25 years, Neal has helped business clients large and small, as well as individuals, resolve a wide range of complex problems; always with a singular focus of efficiently wrangling the client’s obstacles so they can get back to what they do best – earning a living. Neal focuses his practice on two basic areas of the law – commercial litigation and general construction matters.
On the commercial litigation side, Neal zealously represents clients embroiled in a broad range of commercial disputes arising in a myriad of commercial settings, including development deals gone bad, contract breaches, fiduciary duty disputes, “business divorces” in closely held companies and partnerships, restrictive covenant battles, property owners suffering under overreaching municipalities or HOA boards… The list goes on.
In the construction and development arenas, Neal helps owners, contractors, sub-contractors, and design professionals in just about every aspect of construction and development projects, including breach of contract disputes, project delay and termination issues, M&M lien perfection issues, contract preparation and review, job site injury and death cases, and, of course, litigation and arbitration of all manner of disputes arising in construction and land development transactions.

Melissa is an experienced trial lawyer, member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) and a certified mediator. During her eighteen-year career, she has gained extensive trial experience as managing in-house counsel for an insurance company, head litigation attorney for a plaintiffs’ firm, and partner at a mid-size firm before joining DBC. Melissa strives to educate and empower her clients to make the best decisions before, during and after the litigation process. She handles all kinds of civil litigation matters including commercial litigation, business and partnership disputes, construction defects, employment discrimination, premises liability, insurance coverage matters, contract disputes, real estate disputes, and personal injury.

David Hartman has a diversified land use and real estate development practice, including experience in a broad range of land development permitting, entitlement, and natural resource issues on behalf of landowners and developers. His practice focuses on the representation of clients in the areas of zoning, planning, and entitlements law, including representation before city councils, boards, commissions, and other governmental entities. He has worked on diverse real estate projects, including a variety of multifamily, mixed use projects, single family residential and master planned projects, hotels, office buildings, vacant land, and condominiums, among others. He represents some of the most active multifamily developers in Central Texas, and has unique experience in vested development rights/grandfathering, public-private partnerships, development agreements, annexation, and Board of Adjustment variances. His practice encompasses environmental and regulatory compliance issues arising under the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and other natural resource regulatory matters. He has extensive experience in all aspects of conservation transactions, including both fee title acquisitions and conservation easement conveyances, along with conservation banking and related funding mechanisms and programs for conservation acquisitions. Years of working in and around local, county, state, and federal governmental agencies and legislative bodies (both prior to and after obtaining his law degree) allows him to offer clients unique insights to their dealings with governmental entities and related regulatory matters.

Mona focuses her practice on a variety of real estate and commercial transactions including the sale and acquisition of developed and undeveloped land, leasing (tenant and landlord representation), development and subdivision of property for residential, commercial, and mixed-use purposes, and entity formation. Mona’s training at a large international firm, and experience working abroad representing large public and private sector clients enables her to bring a well-balanced perspective to any deal. Born and raised Down Under, Mona is both a proud Australian and delighted to call Austin home.

Austin’s practice focuses in corporate law with an emphasis on intellectual property (“IP”) and IP-related transactions. Clients Austin has represented include high-tech goods and service providers operating in a broad array of technology fields, consumer products companies, literary estates, and brand developers.

Austin is deeply involved in all aspects of the development and commercialization of intellectual property. He helps clients identify, protect, cultivate, and leverage their IP assets in the U.S. and internationally. Austin’s experience includes the registration and enforcement of trademarks and copyrights, assisting with the drafting, prosecution, and licensing of patents, identifying and protecting trade secrets, and conducting IP-related due diligence.

In addition to traditional intellectual property counseling, Austin has expertise in the rapidly evolving fields of privacy and Internet law, including handling domain name and cybersquatting disputes, along with counseling clients on all aspects of handling personal information, conducting e-commerce, and commercializing creative online content.

Austin regularly operates as an outside general counsel for his clients, counseling them on everyday legal matters and performing general contract work, including entity formation and corporate structuring, licensing, corporate compliance, and dispute resolution; as well as drafting and negotiating employee agreements, SaaS agreements, terms of service, privacy policies, franchise agreements, buy/sell agreements, and other such transactional legal documents.

Heather is a finance and real estate attorney with over 20 years of experience negotiating, documenting and closing large and small commercial credit facilities and other lending transactions.
She has represented administrative agents, syndication agents, lenders, borrowers and private equity sponsors in a variety of deals, including:
• secured and unsecured credit facilities,
• real estate loans,
• sports venue financings,
• asset based lending,
• mergers and acquisitions,
• syndicated credit facilities,
• bilateral credit facilities,
• subscription line credit facilities,
• equipment and project finance,
• lease financings,
• mezzanine financings,
• subordination and intercreditor arrangements,
• credit facilities guaranteed by the Export-Import Bank of the United States,
• loan participations, and
• loan restructurings, workouts and bankruptcy debtor-in-possession credit facilities.

She has also represented buyers and sellers of commercial real estate.

Heather has represented clients in deals for various industries, including amateur and professional sports (football, soccer, baseball, basketball and auto racing), entertainment, manufacturing, real estate, restaurants, gas stations and convenience stores, retail and technology.

Shana’s practice focuses on corporate and securities law in a wide variety of industries. Her experience includes representing public and private clients in the areas of corporate governance, business transactions, securities compliance, fiduciary responsibilities and both debt and equity financings. She has guided non-profit organizations on formation, tax and regulatory issues, and has also counseled clients regarding restructurings, mergers and acquisitions.

Shana provides general outside counsel representation for clients, drafting and negotiating various contract types including service agreements, distribution agreements, custom manufacturing agreements, license agreements and SaaS agreements. She is well-versed in handling employment agreements, separation agreements, and various types of equity and phantom equity compensation arrangements. Additionally, she represents companies at formation, including negotiation of formation agreements, partnership agreements and shareholders’ agreements.

Shana also has a strong passion for representing women-owned and family-owned businesses. She is also an active member of the Junior League of Austin.