Shawn didn’t set out to be a lawyer. He was deep into academic life as a graduate student in a Ph.D. program at the University of Houston when he realized he wanted to do something where people, not papers, were at the center. He veered course and completed his education at South Texas College of Law in Houston and never looked back.
Since 1993 Shawn Staples has practiced law throughout Texas and the United States. He is admitted to the United States District Courts for the Southern, Northern, Eastern and Western Districts of Texas, the Western District of Tennessee; the Northern District of Illinois, the United States Court of Federal Claims, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Shawn has a reputation for handling cases that require more than just legal knowledge—they demand technical fluency, strategic foresight, and the ability to translate technical and complex matters into concepts that can be understood by someone hearing them for the first time. He has been lead or co-lead counsel in cases involving anti-trust, pharmaceutical products liability, industrial accidents, commercial breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation of trade secrets, patent infringement, oil and gas, and exposure to toxic chemicals.
Shawn practices with the belief that for all his clients, big or small, their case is a “high stakes” case to them. For him it’s about doing work that matters, with precision and purpose, for people who need a voice.
Shawn was born in Missoula, Montana to a long line of Montanans, but has lived the majority of his life in Texas, with stints in Colorado and Virginia. Outside the courtroom, he’s a dedicated cyclist—logging close to 10,000 miles a year riding bikes, and competing multiple times in endurance races like the Leadville 100 and Butte 100.
