Matthew J. Kita
Matt Kita is a personal injury appellate lawyer based in Dallas, Texas. Originally from Buffalo, New York, Matt graduated from Boston College with a bachelor’s degree in political science, from the University of Maryland with a master’s degree in education policy, and received his J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center. After law school he served as a law clerk to Justice Eva Guzman on Texas’s Fourteenth Court of Appeals.
Matt’s practice has focused primarily on authoring briefs and presenting oral argument in Texas and California’s state and federal appellate courts. He also specializes in law-and-motion practice in the trial courts, prepares jury instructions, drafts proposed written opinions to support arbitration awards, and authors comprehensive mediation statements. His civil practice is concentrated on representing victims of personal injuries, civil-rights violations, and reputational torts.
He has argued and obtained favorable results for his clients in the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Ninth Circuits, the Texas Supreme Court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and several of Texas’s intermediate appellate courts. He has also presented oral argument to California’s Courts of Appeal in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Matt successfully briefed and argued the seminal case in Texas non-subscriber law, Austin v. Kroger, to the Texas Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (twice), and obtained a favorable result for his client all three times. He also obtained a confirmation of an arbitration award against Walmart in excess of $8 million in a United States federal District Court, after Walmart refused to pay a former employee the amount that an arbitrator awarded for the damages he suffered. As a result of these victories, and Matt’s understanding of the complexities of non-subscriber and arbitration law and procedure, Matt has obtained favorable awards in dozens of trials and arbitrations.
In 2012, Matt received the Dallas Trial Lawyers Association’s John Howie Award, which is given to an advocate “for the courageous pursuit of justice in the face of adversity.” Since 2014, he has been selected each year as a Texas Super Lawyer and as one of D Magazine’s Best Lawyers in Dallas. He wears the ‘7’ pin on his lapel to remind the judges and justices to whom he argues of the importance of the Seventh Amendment: the constitutional right that all of us have to a trial by jury.
Perhaps most importantly to the stamina required for his appellate practice, he is a die-hard and long-suffering fan of the Buffalo Bills.
Richard D. Faulkner
As a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and holder of a Diploma in International Commercial Arbitration, Richard D. Faulkner is one of the foremost arbitration experts in the country. Mr. Faulkner has arbitrated over 300 commercial, construction, employment, professional credentialing, insurance coverage, reinsurance, international, non-competition, trade secret, loan default, commercial lease, maritime, securities, personal injury, and internet “Domain Name” disputes. He has also been counsel in multiple class-action arbitrations, dealing with contract, statutory, and injunction issues, and international arbitrations in the United Kingdom, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands valued at more than $150M.
In 2005, Mr. Faulkner was the Arbitration Tribunal Chairman for the Lance Armstrong and Tailwind Sports, Inc. v. SCA Promotions, Inc. et al. He authored the largest arbitration sanction in United States, when the Tribunal awarded SCA $10M for Mr. Armstrong’s misleading the arbitration tribunal. His Award was subsequently made public and the subject of stories in the WSJ, NYT, Times of London, Straights Times of Singapore.
Mr. Faulkner has been a Professor of Alternative Dispute Resolution Law and taught arbitration and mediation in the U.S., U.K., Kingdom of Jordan, and Kingdom of Malaysia. He has also taught Admiralty Law, holds an LL.M. in Admiralty Law from Tulane Law School where he served as an Adjunct Professor. He was a Contributing Author to the ABA handbook on arbitration, “How Arbitration Works, 6th ed.”, and author of numerous articles on arbitration, mediation and negotiation.
Currently, Mr. Faulkner is the principal attorney for Faulkner ADR Law and Of Counsel for Bennett Injury Law in Dallas, Texas.
Mr. Faulkner has been appointed by multiple Federal District Courts as deputy special master and mediator, and by numerous Texas courts for a variety of cases. He served as a trial judge in municipal courts in Collin and Tarrant Counties in Texas, and was a Judge Ad Hoc in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. Mr. Faulkner has been an expert witness on Alternative Dispute Resolution in the United States District Court in the Northern District of Texas and the Southern District of Texas, as well as the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Texas, and the House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana.
He is the National Programs Chairman for the American Bar Association’s Arbitration Committee, and is a Master of the W.M. “Mac” Taylor, Jr. Inn of the American Inns of Court.
Charles A. Bennett
Charles Bennett is a personal injury lawyer and trial consultant who has personally tried cases to verdict for personal injury plaintiffs, criminal prosecution, and criminal defense. Charles is the principal attorney for Bennett Injury Law. He represents his clients in commercial/18-wheeler crashes, wrongful death and catastrophic injury, traumatic brain damage, motor vehicle crashes, and workplace injuries. Charles is known as a tough, aggressive litigator who uses the tools of the law to put maximum pressure on the defense to force them into either paying full value for a case or taking unreasonable positions at trial.
As a consultant, Charles operates Trial Structure, LLC, where he is one of the principal consultants that prepares opening statements for trial lawyers prior to trial. Trial Structure is a system for organizing evidence and case presentation in a way that dramatically increases the value of the case. Once written, the opening statement acts as a roadmap for the rest of trial from voir dire, to evidence, to closing and rebuttal. Trial Structure also teaches other lawyers around the country how to implement the structure into their practice to increase their effectiveness and the value of their cases.
Charles graduated law school cum laude from SMU Dedman School of Law in Dallas in 2014.
Prior to going to law school, Charles attended Midwestern State University on full athletic scholarship. He graduated with a degree in kinesiology and a minor in mathematics and was captain of the basketball team his senior year, a two-time academic all-conference selection, won two conference championships, and finished his career top 20 in scoring and top 15 in rebounding in school history.
After college, Charles went on to play professional basketball in Europe for eight years in Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey. Charles brings his work ethic, intensity, and competitiveness for winning from the basketball court into the court of law.
During law school, while clerking at a Dallas law firm, Charles helped represent and obtain international arbitration awards for professional basketball players and agents. Charles was also a student prosecutor for the Wylie Municipal Court where he first-chaired several trials.
Charles has been a member in The National Trial Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 since 2017, which is an elite group of top attorneys around the nation, and he was nominated by Thomson Reuters to Super Lawyers, Rising Stars for 2020.
