Brad Hubbard is a senior associate in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.  His is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group.

Mr. Hubbard was recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® as “One to Watch” in Appellate Practice (2022).

Mr. Hubbard is a trusted appellate advocate and counselor.  He has represented clients in their most complex, high-stakes, time-sensitive matters, appearing before U.S. Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court, and countless state and federal courts of appeals.  Mr. Hubbard has presented argument before the Fifth and Tenth Circuits; second-chaired arguments in the Texas Supreme Court, the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Circuits, and the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Texas Courts of Appeals; and conducted direct and cross-examination of witnesses at trial.  Mr. Hubbard has successfully litigated cases involving arbitration, antitrust, class actions, the constitution, contracts, products liability, trade secrets, the False Claims Act, RICO, and state and federal criminal law.

Mr. Hubbard’s most significant victories include reversing the largest judgment in the history of the False Claims Act in the Fifth Circuit; reversing a half-billion dollar jury verdict in the San Antonio Court of Appeals; reversing an eight-figure verdict in the Dallas Court of Appeals; reversing a seven-figure verdict in the Texas Supreme Court; and prevailing in several eight-figure arbitration cases in the Fifth Circuit.  Mr. Hubbard has also helped clients preserve significant wins in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court, and the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits.   His pro bono victories include persuading a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate his client’s religious-liberty claims against two Kansas police officers; protecting the First Amendment rights of the Kountze ISD cheerleaders; and successfully advocating on behalf of crime victims as amici curiae in a number of important criminal cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Recent Representative Matters:

• Obtained reversal of the largest judgment in the history of the False Claims Act on behalf of a major Texas manufacturer.  U.S. ex rel. Harman v. Trinity Industries, Inc., No. 15-41172 (5th Cir.).  Successfully obtained dismissal of over a dozen tag-along state False Claims Act suits filed by same relator.
• Secured emergency stay pending appeal and ultimately persuaded the Texas Supreme Court to dismiss plaintiffs’ common-law claims in case of first impression about the scope of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.  In re Facebook, No. 20-0434 (Tex.)
• Persuaded court to reverse half-billion dollar jury verdict in trade-secrets case.  Title Source, Inc. v. HouseCanary, Inc., No. 04-19-00044-cv (Tex. App.—San Antonio).
• Won preliminary injunctive relief from emergency arbitrator, secured judicial confirmation of that preliminary injunctive relief in case involving multi-billion dollar, exclusive distribution agreement, and persuaded courts to dismiss one related case and stay the other pending arbitration.  Vital Pharms., Inc. v. PepsiCo, Inc., No. 0:20-cv-62415 (S.D. Fla.); Quash Seltzer, LLC v. PepsiCo, Inc., No. 0:21-cv-60191 (S.D. Fla.).
• Compelled arbitration of nine-figure RICO fraud class action and successfully defended the win on appeal.  Griggs v. S.G.E. Mgmt. L.L.C., No. 17-50655 (5th Cir.), No. 1:15-cv-422 (W.D. Tex.).
• Defeated challenge to Heath and Human Service’s rejection of former employee’s eight-figure wrongful termination suit.  Frey v. U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., No. 18-60205 (5th Cir.).
• Overturned a $7.25 million verdict on statute-of-frauds grounds.  Hill v. Shamoun & Norman, LLP, No. 16-0107 (Tex.).  After the district court compelled plainly overbroad and improper discovery on remand, persuaded the Fifth Court to stay the discovery order pending resolution of our mandamus petition—also persuaded the State to file an amicus brief in support of our mandamus petition.  In re Albert G. Hill, No. 05-19-00394-cv (Tex. App.—Dallas).
• Successfully challenged Texas statute requiring in-state residency in order to obtain a permit to sell alcoholic beverages under the Commerce and Privileges and Immunities Clauses. Cooper v. Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, No. 14-51343 (5th Cir.)
• Secured reversal of $6.1 million tortious-interference verdict on behalf of leading cementitious powder manufacturer.  Stelluti Kerr, LLC v. MAPEI Corp., No. 16-10430 (5th Cir.).
• Defeated $11 million jury verdict in a Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act suit on extraterritoriality and Noerr–Pennington grounds. Profinity, LLC v. One Technologies, L.P., No. 05-14-00403-cv (Tex. App.—Dallas).
• Secured dismissal of NCAA student-athletes’ antitrust and right-of-publicity claims; successfully defended dismissal on appeal. Marshall v. ESPN, No. 15-5753 (6th Cir.), No. 3:14-cv-01945 (M.D. Tenn.).
• Represented the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Washington Legal Foundation in two cases involving personal jurisdiction before the Texas Supreme Court.  Luciano v. SprayFoamPolymers.com, LLC, No. 18-350 (Tex.); Cessna Aircraft Co. v. Garcia, No. 19-0381 (Tex.)
• Preserved significant appellate court victories by persuading the Texas Supreme Court to deny review after calling for full merits briefing in two oil and gas cases; then successfully rebuffed rehearing requests.  Nixon v. Hardaway, No. 18-0162 (Tex.); Greer v. Shook, No. 17-0028 (Tex.)
• Defeated challenge to denial of certification in antitrust case seeking to certify class of 11,000 nurses.   Maderazo v. Hosp. Corp. of Am., Inc., No. 19-90004 (5th Cir.)
• Persuaded a unanimous Supreme Court to reinstate pro se plaintiff’s religious-liberty claims against police officers who forced her to stop praying in her own home; garnered amicus support from the State of Texas and numerous former federal prosecutors.  Sause v. Bauer, No. 17-742 (U.S.).  Argued Ms. Sause’s case in the Tenth Circuit and drew a strong concurrence from Chief Judge Tymkovich, which set the stage for the Supreme Court victory.  Sause v. Bauer, No. 16-3231 (10th Cir.).
• Prevailed on high school cheerleaders’ First Amendment free-speech claim against their school district, which included persuading the Texas Supreme Court to revive their claims after the court of appeals had ruled them moot. Matthews v. Kountze Independent School District, No. 14-0453 (Tex.), No. 09-13-00251-cv (Tex. App.—Beaumont).
• Successfully defended order holding a criminal-defense attorney in contempt for violating an order forbidding the attorney from making an adverse-inference argument. In re Leonard, No. 16-1297 (7th Cir.).
• Represented an ideologically diverse coalition of constitutional law experts—including Floyd Abrams, Alan Dershowitz, Michael W. McConnell, Michael Mukasey, Ken Starr, and Eugene Volokh—as amici curiae supporting the dismissal of the criminal indictment against Governor Rick Perry. Ex parte Perry, No. PD-1067-15 (Tex. Crim. App.).

Mr. Hubbard also maintains an active pro bono practice, focusing on religious liberty and crime victims’ rights.  In addition to victories for Ms. Sause and the Kountze cheerleaders described above, Mr. Hubbard also recently obtained a stay pending appeal on behalf of Justice of the Peace Wayne Mack, permitting him to continue allowing volunteer chaplains to perform brief, optional, and interfaith opening ceremonies before court sessions while the Fifth Circuit adjudicates the merits of his appeal.  Freedom from Religion Found., Inc. v. Mack, No. 21-20279 (5th Cir.).  Mr. Hubbard has also represented crime victims and crime victims’ organizations—to make sure their voices are heard too—in an number of important cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Bucklew v. Precythe, No. 17-8185 (U.S.) (method of execution); Kahler v. Kansas, No. 18-6135 (U.S.) (Kansas’s insanity test); United States v. Briggs, No. 19-108 (U.S.) (statute of limitations for rape under Uniform Code of Military Justice); Arizona v. Goodman, No. 18-391 (U.S.) and Arizona v. Martinez, No. 16-1489 (U.S.) (denial of bail to sex offenders); Kansas v. Boettger, No. 19-1051 (U.S.) (state statute proscribing violent threats).  In addition, Mr. Hubbard recently represented Senators Feinstein, Kyl, and Hatch—the drafters and sponsors for the Crime Victims’ Rights Act—in a case brought by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims.  Ms. Wild, represented by Judge Paul Cassell, alleged that federal prosecutors violated her rights under the Act—to confer with and be treated fairly by prosecutors—by secretly negotiating a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein in 2007.  In re Courtney Wild, No. 19-13843 (11th Cir.).

Mr. Hubbard graduated with Honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 2013, where he served as Managing Editor of The University of Chicago Law Review.  He was a Kirkland & Ellis Scholar and a member of the Order of the Coif.  While at the Law School, he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics and received the Chicago Bar Association Federal Tax Section’s Award for Academic Achievement in Taxation.  Mr. Hubbard received his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Accountancy, summa cum laude, from the University of Missouri, where he was a four-year letter winner and captain of the nationally ranked men’s swim team.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Hubbard served as a law clerk to the Honorable James C. Ho of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Steven M. Colloton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

He is a member of the Texas bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits, and the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Districts of Texas.

Publication:

• Bradley George Hubbard, Deference to Agency Statutory Interpretations First Advanced in Litigation? The Chevron Two-Step and the Skidmore Shuffle, 80 U. Chi. L. Rev. 447 (2013) (cited in E.I. Du Pont Nemours & Co. v. Smiley, 138 S. Ct. 2563 (2018) (Gorsuch, J., joined by Roberts, C.J., and Thomas, J., respecting the denial of certiorari)).