Robert M. (Randy) Roach, Jr. is the founding partner of Roach Newton, L.L.P., an appellate and insurance boutique formed in 1993, with offices in Houston and Austin, Texas. Randy specializes in Texas Supreme Court appellate issues, especially in trial courts, as well as in insurance coverage disputes, intentional torts (gross, fraud, bad faith, punitive), and breach of contract disputes. He is board-certified in both appellate and trial practices by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. At the national level, Randy is a fellow in the invitation-only American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, PLAC, and the policyholder counsel-only Insurance Information Council.
Randy is a 1977 graduate of Georgetown University (magna cum laude) and a 1981 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, where he was a member of the Texas Law Review and the winner of two senior moot court championships. Before law school, Randy served at the U.S. Supreme Court in the office of Judicial Interns as a staff writer for Chief Justice Warren Burger. Before that, Randy served as a staff writer for the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition.
Randy’s 40+ years of practice began in 1981 as a trial lawyer in Harry Reasoner’s Antitrust group at Vinson & Elkins. He then practiced for 10 years with a premier Houston mid-size firm, first as an associate and then as a partner. While at Mayor, Day, Caldwell & Keeton, Randy became a 20-verdict trial lawyer and the founding partner of its appellate group. In 1993, Randy started his own appellate and insurance coverage boutique, which is now over 30 years old. Throughout his practice, he has served in a variety of capacities – as the appellate specialist added to bet-the-company trial teams, as the lead counsel before the Texas Supreme Court, as the intentional tort and/or insurance expert at trials, appeals, and arbitrations across the country, and as a lead settlement strategist.
Reflecting his unique fusion of nationally recognized appellate, trial, and settlement 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 Chambers USA Leading Lawyers for Business-Insurance. He is also listed as a “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.
Randy has been focused on using that complete set of litigation skills to get cases resolved short of protracted litigation. Randy has been a certified mediator since 1993. Randy was appointed by Chief Justice Frank Price as one of the 5 appellate mediators in a multi-year pilot project to mediate all Houston First court courts of appeal cases. He has been designated as the settlement lawyer in numerous 8 and 9-figure cases. Randy has also been designated as an arbitrator in numerous coverage disputes and has been designated as an expert witness in insurance cases, primarily on bad faith tort issues. Chambers USA recently named Roach Newton as one of its 2025 Spotlight regional law firms for Dispute Resolution.
This unique combination of appellate, trial, and settlement skills also led Randy to serve as an adjunct professor of law for over 30 years. First, from 1990 to 2022, Randy taught law students how to advocate to judges in his Appellate Advocacy and Advanced Insurance Appeals classes at the University of Houston’s law school. Then in 2000, Randy accepted the invitation of his alma mater to bring his judicial advocacy approach 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 practice and co-teaching with and learning from dozens of top judges and court staff attorneys, Randy continuously developed, honed, and taught his own special “judge-focused and jurisprudence-driven” methods for identifying, developing, and presenting winning legal solutions to all types of judges.
Giving back to the profession he loves, Randy has been the Chair of many legal organizations. 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. 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.
Randy is in his second term as Chair of the Amicus Committee of the International Ass’n of Defense Counsel. He has written amicus briefs on behalf of the IADC, the Product Liability Advisory Council, the American Petroleum Institute, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Nat’l Ass’n of Manufacturers, and numerous other national and Texas-based industry trade associations and companies.
He has authored over 175 CLE papers and law review articles and made over 200 CLE presentations on topics including the Texas Supreme Court, advocacy to trial judges, insurance coverage and breach of contract disputes, fraud, gross negligence, bad faith and punitive, trial and appellate procedure, oral argument, brief writing, and professional ethics.
- Chambers USA