BIOGRAPHY

Chris Hamilton is one of the country’s leading trial lawyers. He has won record-setting verdicts and settlements in catastrophic personal injury cases, wrongful death lawsuits, and complex business disputes.

Chris has won over $8 billion in verdicts and settlements for his clients in cases where he was lead counsel.

After starting his career at Legal Aid, Chris obtained his first multi-million-dollar jury verdict as lead counsel in his twenties. Since then, over the last two decades, he has won one record-setting verdict after another representing individuals against the most powerful corporations and insurance companies in the world, often in difficult or complex cases.

In 2022, Chris won a historic $7 billion jury verdict in a wrongful death case against a Fortune 100 company for negligence, gross negligence, and forgery, which was the year’s largest verdict nationwide and the 4th largest personal injury award in U.S. history against a corporation.

The Dallas Business Journal recognized Chris for winning Texas’ largest personal injury verdict in 2014, which ranked as the nation’s 17th largest. In addition, he was recognized by Top Verdict in 2016 for Texas’ 9th largest personal injury verdict. Verdict Search noted him in 2011 for one of the state’s Top 10 and Top 100 verdicts in the U.S. Chris has also been repeatedly recognized for having among the top personal injury settlements in Texas, year after year.

One of the secrets to Chris’ success is that he approaches every courtroom fight focused on what is in the best interest of his client. Chris has never backed down from a difficult or challenging case that he believed was a just and righteous cause. As one client said after a trial, “Chris had an emotional investment in the case. And it wasn’t an act.”

Chris has been featured in Courtroom View Network’s (CVN) list of the Most Impressive Trials of 2019, and his multibillion- dollar victory three years later topped CVN’s list of the Most Impressive Plaintiffs Verdicts of 2022.

Chris has been repeatedly recognized for his expertise in personal injury trials by other attorneys in the annual list of The Best Lawyers in Dallas by D Magazine, The Best Lawyers in America, Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America, Texas Super Lawyers, and National Trial Lawyers Top 100 Civil Plaintiff Attorneys, and is a member of the prestigious American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) and the Leader’s Forum for the American Association for Justice.

Chris’ cases have been featured in numerous media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, USA Today, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, Fox News, CNN, Business Insider, Texas Lawyer, Dallas Business Journal, Law360, The Dallas Morning News, The Texas Lawbook, The Houston Chronicle, and The Austin- American Statesman, and numerous local television reports and print news stories nationwide.

Chris has served as an adjunct professor of Trial Advocacy at SMU and has guest-lectured at law schools across Texas. He is deeply involved with training Hamilton Wingo’s trial lawyers. Chris has always taught that at Hamilton Wingo, we should represent every client the way we would represent our own family members, and everything else will take care of itself.

Chris earned the Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year honor in 2017 from the American Association for Justice for defending Constitutional rights. Chris is a fluent Spanish speaker.

Chris’ recent verdicts and successes for clients include:

• $7.3 billion jury verdict against a Fortune 100 company in a wrongful death case alleging negligent hiring and supervision-the 4th largest personal injury verdict against a corporation in U.S. history. The verdict resulted in a confidential settlement.
• $52 million settlement in a construction case involving catastrophic injuries from a scaffolding collapse.
• $50 million settlement in a case involving a death caused by an 18-wheeler.
• $39.4 million jury verdict in a commercial dispute involving a breach of partnership agreements, breach of fiduciary duties, and fraud in an alternative energy transaction recognized as one of the Top 10 Verdicts in Texas and Top 100 Verdicts in the United States.
• $36 million settlement in a wrongful death, dram shop case arising from the over- service of alcohol. Among the largest dram shop settlements in Texas history.
• $32 million settlement in a road construction defect case involving a traumatic brain injury.
• $27 million compensatory damages jury verdict in a wrongful death case alleging premises liability for inadequate security against The McDonald’s Corporation, among the largest premises liability verdicts in Texas history.
• $25 million settlement in a federal False Claims Act case against a private equity firm for causing the submission of false claims to Medicaid, the largest False Claims Act settlement against a private equity firm in U.S. history.
• $24 million settlement in a wrongful death case involving a commercial vehicle. Confidential settlement after a two-week trial in a high-profile wrongful death case.
• $23 million settlement in a premises liability case involving brain injury to a child.
• $19.7 million compensatory damages jury verdict in a medical malpractice case. One of the largest malpractice verdicts in Texas history.
• $18.3 million arbitration award for negligent misrepresentation in a commercial case involving the sale of a medical device company. The entire award was approved on appeal.
• $17 million settlement for policy limits in a wrongful death case involving a commercial vehicle.
• $15 million settlement in wrongful death case involving a workplace fatality.
• $12 million settlement for policy limits in a wrongful death case arising from a workplace accident.
• Confidential eight-figure settlement in a medical malpractice case involving brain injury to a child. Confidential settlement in a landmark case proving groundwater contamination from oil and gas operations, representing a family severely burned in an explosion.
• Won summary judgment in an insurance coverage dispute, finding coverage for an eight-figure judgment where the insurance company had claimed multiple exclusions in denying coverage. The successful summary judgment was affirmed in full on appeal.
• Successfully represented an insurance company in a bet-the- company insurance coverage dispute against a reinsurer, resulting in substantial recoveries to policyholders.
• Take nothing defense verdict on behalf of Dallas County in a case in which Chris was appointed by the Commissioners Court as a Special Deputy District Attorney to defend the county in a whistleblower case against a sitting judge alleging several million dollars in damages.