Robert M. (Randy) Roach, Jr.

Robert M. (Randy) Roach, Jr. is the founding partner of Roach Newton LLP, a Texas appellate boutique with a special focus on the Texas Supreme Court, insurance coverage disputes, and gross negligence/fraud/punitives. Randy’s 40+years of practice began as a trial and appellate lawyer at Vinson & Elkins in 1981, included 10 years with a premier Houston firm as a 20-verdict trial lawyer and  founding partner of its appellate group, and led to starting his own boutique law firm over 30 years ago. Throughout his practice, he has served as the appellate specialist added to bet-the-company trial teams, the lead counsel before the Texas Supreme Court, and as the intentional tort and insurance expert at trials, appeals, and arbitrations across the country.

Randy’s unique combination of trial and appellate practice and accomplishments has led to a career helping Fortune 500 companies and top national trial lawyers in high stakes litigation as the appellate specialist advocating for winning legal rulings from judges. He has served as state, regional, and national counsel for several major corporations in litigation worth hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, in disputes involving intentional torts, insurance coverage, and contract interpretation disputes.

This unique combination of practice skills and experiences also led Randy to service as an adjunct professor of law for over 30 years. First, from 1990 to 2022, Randy taught Appellate Advocacy and Advanced insurance Appeals at the University of Houston’s law school. Then in 2000, Randy  accepted the invitation of his alma mater to bring his judicial advocacy teachings to the University of Texas School of Law where he taught until 2023. To co-teach all of his classes on how to best advocate to judges, Randy brought in top-trial and appellate judges and court staff attorneys, as well as Texas Supreme Court justices as guest lecturers every year. Over more than three decades  of co-teaching with and learning from dozens of top judges and court staff attorneys, Randy continuously developed, perfected, and taught his own special “judge-focused and jurisprudence -driven” methods for identifying, developing, and presenting winning legal solutions to all types of judges.

Substantively, Randy taught his students how to clarify or advance the Texas Supreme Court’s  jurisprudence on gross negligence, fraud, punitive damages, breach of fiduciary duties, insurance contract interpretation and bad faith. He has also made over 200 CLE presentations to lawyers on these same judicial advocacy and  substantive law topics.

Reflecting his unique fusion of nationally recognized appellate and trial practices, Randy is a dual member of the invitation-only American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and the American Board of Trial Advocates. Similarly, he is board certified both in Civil Appellate Law and in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Randy has been listed in Best Lawyers in America for Appellate Practice and Insurance Law and in Chambers USA Leading Lawyers for Business-Insurance. He is also listed as “Go-To” lawyer for Insurance Coverage Disputes on LinkedIn.  He has been named a Texas Super Lawyer and one of the top 100 lawyers in the Houston region. His Firm’s appellate and insurance practices are nationally recognized by U.S. News. He is a sustaining member of PLAC and a member of the Insurance Information Council.

Giving back to the profession he loves, Randy has been the Chair of many legal organizations. He is the current Chair of the Amicus Committee of the International Ass’n of Defense Counsel. He is a Past Chair of the Appellate Sections of both the Texas State Bar and the Houston Bar. He is also a Past Chair of the Council of Chairs of the State Bar of Texas. Randy was appointed by the State Bar  as its special prosecutor on appeal in a series of high-profile attorney disbarment proceedings, and when the Insurance Section of the State Bar was first created, Randy served as its Liaison to the Judiciary.  He is a former Trustee of and current Fellow of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society.

Born in Westchester, New York, Randy attended elementary school in Chicago and secondary school in Houston. While at Houston’s Memorial High School, he won numerous interscholastic writing and debate competitions, won the Superior Speaker Award at the National Student Congress, and was student-body President. He received his undergraduate B.A. degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and received his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law, where he was a member of the Texas Law Review and won both law school’s two senior-level Moot Court championships. Prior to law school, Randy worked as a writer for the U.S. Senate’s Nutrition Committee and for the U.S. Supreme Court.