Built by trial lawyers, for workers.
Doyle Dennis Avery LLP was founded in 2015 as Doyle Law Firm by Michael Patrick Doyle and Patrick M. Dennis. Jeffrey I. Avery joined the firm at its founding as an attorney. From the beginning, the firm built its identity around a singular conviction: that workers who stand up against employer wrongdoing — whether by reporting illegal conduct, refusing to break the law, asserting workers’ compensation rights, or opposing discrimination and harassment — deserve serious trial representation, not a settlement mill.
Mike came to the firm after building one of the most respected maritime and personal injury trial practices in Houston — practicing first at Vinson & Elkins, then at Cook, Doyle & Bradshaw, and then at Doyle Raizner LLP before founding the firm in 2015. He is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and a Diplomate of the American Board of Trial Advocates. Patrick — born and raised in Houston, son of a long-time union member — brought a deeply rooted commitment to representing workers and a trial practice built on Texas Labor Code § 451, Seaman’s Protection Act, OSHA, Texas Health and Safety Code §§ 161.134 and 161.145, and race and gender discrimination matters under state and federal law.
In 2022, the firm became Doyle Dennis, and Jeff Avery became a partner — reflecting Jeff’s growing leadership of the firm’s whistleblower retaliation and Texas employment trial docket, including his role as lead trial counsel in the firm’s anchor § 451 verdict in Alleyton Resource Co. v. Ball. Today, Jeff leads the retaliation, whistleblower, and Texas employment matters profiled on this site, while Mike’s primary focus remains the firm’s broader trial docket — maritime, Jones Act, international personal injury, and insurance bad faith — profiled at the firm’s separate practice sites. In 2024, the firm became Doyle Dennis Avery LLP.
What the firm has built since 2015 is the foundation of how it works today: a selective trial practice, anchored by jury verdicts and published Texas appellate authority, focused on the matters where workers face the most serious wrong and the most serious consequences for standing up to it.
How the firm works.
Four principles that shape every matter the firm takes — and most matters the firm declines.
The firm represents a limited number of clients in matters it can take to trial if necessary. Most matters the firm reviews, the firm does not take. The work that gets taken receives substantial trial preparation and senior attorney attention — not because every case will be tried, but because the cases that should settle, settle on stronger terms when the other side knows the case is ready for a jury.
Worker-side representation is not a marketing position at this firm. It’s identity. Patrick was raised by a long-time union member. Mike served on the Houston Advisory Board of the AFL-CIO Community Fund. The firm has built its trial practice across nearly four decades of representing the workers in the room — never the employer across the table.
The firm prepares every case from intake forward as if it will be presented to a jury. Discovery is built around trial themes. Depositions are built around trial questions. Experts are selected against trial standards. When settlement comes — and many cases do settle — the position is stronger because the trial work is done.
The matters the firm takes tend to involve egregious conduct — not just unfortunate or unfair circumstances, but employer behavior that crosses a clear legal line. Retaliation against a worker who reported safety violations. Termination for refusing to commit a crime. Sexual harassment unreported because of fear of retaliation. The firm’s anchor verdicts share this character.
Recovered for the firm’s clients in wrongful termination, retaliation, whistleblower, and employment contract matters across the firm’s history representing Texas workers.
Recovered by the firm’s trial team across personal injury, employment, and insurance lawsuits — including the firm’s separately profiled maritime and railroad personal injury practices.
The firm has not only won verdicts. It has shaped Texas law.
Two published Texas appellate opinions where the firm prevailed and established controlling authority now applied across the firm’s broader Texas employment practice and the practices of attorneys statewide.
Published Texas Supreme Court authority holding that the attorney-client privilege does not protect communications between a workers’ compensation insurer’s lawyer and the insured employer. The Court rejected the allied litigant doctrine, the joint client privilege, and any insurer-insured privilege as bases to shield those communications from discovery. Directly applicable to Texas Labor Code § 451 retaliation matters, and used by the firm to obtain key discovery in the firm’s anchor Alleyton Resource Co. v. Ball $1.73M § 451 jury verdict.
Published Texas Supreme Court mandamus authority on the medical peer review committee privilege. The Court established the framework for the “anticompetitive action” exception to peer review confidentiality under Tex. Occ. Code § 160.007, holding that peer review proceedings, records, and communications are not confidential to the extent relevant to a properly pleaded anticompetitive action — and that piercing the privilege turns on the plaintiff’s pleadings, not evidence. The opinion is controlling Texas authority for piercing peer review privilege in physician retaliation, tortious interference, and antitrust matters.
Published Texas authority on workers’ compensation retaliation under Texas Labor Code § 451 and circumstantial-evidence rebuttal of facially neutral “reduction-in-force” pretexts. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment and found that § 451.001 protects employees who report a workers’ compensation injury and receive medical treatment — even where the employee has not yet filed official claim paperwork. The opinion’s circumstantial-evidence framework applies across § 451, Sabine Pilot, federal whistleblower retaliation, and the broader retaliation case landscape in Texas.
Published Texas authority on the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act. The firm represented the appellee. The opinion establishes controlling Texas authority on the EFAA — the federal framework voiding predispute arbitration agreements in qualifying matters and restoring federal court access for workers who would otherwise be forced into private arbitration. The opinion’s framework applies broadly to employer arbitration agreements imposed across the Texas employment workforce.
Three partners. One bench.
The firm’s senior trial bench — board certification, federal court bar admissions across Texas and the Fifth Circuit, published appellate authority, and a combined practice spanning nearly four decades of trial work for Texas workers.
Michael Patrick Doyle
Mike is the firm’s founding partner and senior trial counsel. Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization since the early years of his practice, an ABOTA Diplomate, and Past President of the Houston Trial Lawyers Association, Mike has been admitted to the Texas Bar since 1990 and built one of Houston’s most respected trial practices. Mike’s primary focus is the firm’s broader trial docket — maritime, Jones Act, international personal injury, and insurance bad faith — profiled separately at the firm’s offshore injury practice site.
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Patrick M. Dennis
Patrick is the firm’s founding partner on the worker advocacy side. Born and raised in Houston, the son of a long-time union member, Patrick graduated summa cum laude from the University of Houston and with honors from the University of Texas School of Law, where he served on the Review of Litigation. Admitted to the Texas Bar in 2004 and the Arizona Bar in 2012, Patrick is admitted to all four Texas federal district courts and the Fifth Circuit — and has built his trial practice around Texas Labor Code § 451, healthcare retaliation, OSHA reporting, NLRA-protected activity, and race and gender discrimination.
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Jeffrey I. Avery
Jeff is the firm’s partner leading the retaliation, whistleblower, and Texas employment trial docket. Board Certified in Labor and Employment Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, Jeff is the AAJ Admiralty Section Chair (2024) and led the firm’s $1.73 million verdict in Alleyton Resource Co. v. Ball (affirmed). Jeff argued the firm’s published § 451 authority in Salas v. Fluor Daniel and briefed the firm’s published EFAA authority in SJ Medical Center v. Anozie. Jeff joined the firm at its founding in 2015 and became partner in 2022.
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Jordan A. Kennington
Texas Bar 2024 · University of Houston Law Center J.D. · Texas A&M magna cum laude. Jordan supports the firm’s worker-side employment and retaliation matters profiled on this site.
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Patrick Doyle
UT Law J.D. 2019 · Texas Supreme Court argued. Patrick’s primary trial practice in maritime, FELA, and personal injury is profiled at the firm’s separate practice sites; he supports appellate work on this site.
Read full bio →Honors and credentials.
Recognition and credentials held by the firm’s attorneys across decades of trial practice.
Houston primary. Texas focus.
The firm’s primary office sits in the Clocktower Building on Allen Parkway in Houston, with additional offices in Galveston and Phoenix supporting the firm’s broader practice.
Houston
3401 Allen Parkway, Suite 100
Houston, TX 77019
Where the firm practices.
Federal and state court admissions held by the firm’s senior bench.
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of Texas
- U.S. District Court · Eastern District of Texas
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of Texas
- U.S. District Court · Western District of Texas
- U.S. District Court · District of Arizona
- U.S. Court of Appeals · Fifth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals · Ninth Circuit
- State Bar of Texas · Doyle 1990 · Dennis 2004 · Avery 2013
- State Bar of Arizona · Dennis 2012
- State Bar of California · Avery
- State Bar of Missouri · Doyle 2012
The firm’s other practice surfaces.
The firm’s maritime, Jones Act, and offshore injury practice is profiled in detail at offshoreinjurytrialattorney.com, anchored by the trial team’s $7.86 million Gillies v. Valaris PLC Jones Act verdict and a broader maritime trial bench. The firm’s FELA railroad personal injury practice is profiled separately. Inquiries about offshore, Jones Act, or FELA railroad personal injury matters should be directed to those practice sites.
