The work
Jeff Avery is a partner at Doyle Dennis Avery LLP in Houston, Texas, where he leads the firm’s federal whistleblower retaliation, Texas employment retaliation, and appellate practice. He has tried cases in Texas state district court, prosecuted federal whistleblower matters in U.S. district courts and before the Department of Labor’s whistleblower administrative tribunals, briefed and argued appeals in the Texas Court of Appeals and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Ninth Circuits, and represented clients before the Texas Supreme Court, the Louisiana Supreme Court, and other state and federal appellate courts.
Jeff joined the firm’s predecessor, Doyle Raizner LLP, as an associate attorney in March 2013. He moved with the firm to Doyle Dennis LLP as an attorney in 2015 and became Partner in 2022 when the firm took its current form as Doyle Dennis Avery LLP. Since the founding of the firm, Jeff has headed the appellate and trial briefing practice. He is Board Certified in Labor and Employment Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization (2023) — a designation held by fewer than 1% of Texas attorneys and requiring both substantial trial experience in labor and employment law and a rigorous written examination.
Jeff’s practice on this site focuses on the work the firm performs for Texas workers in federal and Texas whistleblower retaliation, Texas employment retaliation under the Texas Labor Code § 451 and the broader Texas retaliation statutes, Sabine Pilot common-law wrongful discharge, race discrimination under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and sexual harassment under Title VII, the TCHRA, and the EFAA arbitration voiding framework. Jeff’s broader appellate, maritime, insurance, and personal injury practice is profiled at the firm’s separate practice sites.
Lead counsel and counsel of record
Workers’ compensation retaliation matter under Tex. Lab. Code § 451. Jeff served as lead trial counsel. A unanimous jury returned a $1.73 million verdict, including $750,000 in punitive damages on a gross negligence finding — approximately 850 times the employer’s final offer at mediation. On June 3, 2021, the Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed the verdict; after requesting briefing on the merits, the Texas Supreme Court denied the petition for review. The matter is the firm’s anchor § 451 verdict and a leading Texas authority on workers’ compensation retaliation damages including exemplary damages on gross negligence.
Long-term care retaliation matter under Tex. Health and Safety Code § 260A.014. Jeff served as lead counsel on behalf of two co-claimants who were retaliated against for protected reporting under the Texas long-term care retaliation framework. The Final Award is one of the firm’s substantial recent recoveries in long-term care retaliation matters and demonstrates the firm’s depth in § 260A.014 representation across the Texas long-term care, skilled nursing, assisted living, memory care, hospice, home health, and behavioral health workforce.
Published Texas authority on workers’ compensation retaliation and circumstantial-evidence rebuttal of facially neutral “reduction-in-force” pretexts. Jeff argued the appeal at the Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals, which reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment and found that Texas Labor Code § 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. Jeff briefed the appeal. The opinion establishes controlling Texas authority on the EFAA’s voiding of predispute arbitration agreements and is directly applicable to employer arbitration agreements imposed across the Texas employment workforce in healthcare, financial services, technology, federal contracting, and the broader Texas employment landscape.
Public-employee whistleblower retaliation trial. Jeff second-chaired the trial in Wake County, North Carolina in September 2016. A unanimous 12-0 jury returned a $1.1 million verdict on a willful violation finding; the final judgment, including prejudgment interest, costs, and statutory attorney’s fees, totaled approximately $1.97 million. The matter is the firm’s anchor public-employee whistleblower trial verdict; its damages framework transfers across Texas Whistleblower Act and federal public-sector whistleblower retaliation matters.
Federal and state appellate experience
Jeff has argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit four times and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit once. He has served as appellate counsel of record in matters before the Texas Supreme Court, the Texas Courts of Appeals in Houston (First and Fourteenth Districts), Dallas, Corpus Christi, and El Paso, the Louisiana Court of Appeals, and the Louisiana Supreme Court. He has drafted briefs on subjects including antitrust, the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, RICO, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Act, business torts, insurance bad faith, wrongful termination and retaliation, civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, application of foreign law, personal and subject matter jurisdiction, forum non conveniens, and hundreds of personal injury issues.
Representative federal appellate and trial-court briefing matters include:
Successfully drafted and briefed a petition for temporary restraining order and temporary injunction in the 234th District Court of Harris County. The court granted the TRO and injunction against the Port of Houston, prohibiting further disciplinary or retaliatory action against six firefighters. Affirmed on appeal.
Offshore injury matter (Sakhalin Islands). Successfully opposed three motions for summary judgment, a motion to dismiss based on forum non conveniens, and a petition for writ of mandamus to the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit denied the mandamus on the rationale Jeff briefed.
Successfully opposed a writ of mandamus to the Ninth Circuit after the District of Arizona found that an insurer and its claims administrator waived attorney-client privilege in a bad faith claim.
After a Harris County district judge denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss based on lack of venue, Jeff successfully defended his client against a writ of mandamus to both the Houston Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court.
Represented twenty-one South African residents in claims against their former employer related to insurance benefits. Successfully opposed motions to dismiss and for summary judgment across promissory estoppel and breach of contract theories in multiple published Northern District of Texas opinions.
Groundbreaking civil RICO decision. Successfully argued at the motion-to-dismiss stage that the denial of workers’ compensation benefits was a property right protected and actionable under 18 U.S.C. § 1964 and Arizona law. The trial court agreed and denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss.
Represented three residents of the Republic of Kosovo in a bad-faith insurance dispute. After ERISA-preemption removal, Jeff filed a motion to remand and successfully argued that ERISA does not apply extraterritorially to a dispute arising from injuries that occurred in Afghanistan. The federal court agreed and granted the motion.
Insurance bad-faith disability claim. Successfully argued that ERISA does not apply to the employment disability policy where the plaintiff was the sole employee of his own company. The court agreed and remanded the case.
Health insurance bad-faith lawsuit on behalf of the widow of a Honduran national who died of cancer. After the defendant removed the case to federal court, Jeff successfully moved to remand on the rationale that the lawsuit was properly joined with a claim against a Texas debt collector.
Workers’ compensation insurance bad-faith death benefits matter. Successfully argued that the employee’s common-law spouse could maintain a claim against an insurance adjuster under Arizona law. The court remanded the case.
Education, bar admissions, and recognition
- UCLA School of Law
J.D.2012 - Vanguard University
B.A., History and Political Science2009
- Board Certified in Labor and Employment Law
Texas Board of Legal Specialization2023 - Texas Bar No. 24085185
- State Bar of Texas
- State Bar of California
- State Bar of Arizona
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas
- U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
- U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
- U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
- U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona
- Super Lawyers · Texas Rising Star
Thomson Reuters · 2016 – present
- American Association for Justice (AAJ)
Admiralty Section: Chair (2024), Chair-Elect (2023), Vice-Chair (2022), Secretary (2021), Membership Liaison (2020), Newsletter Editor (2019) - Houston Trial Lawyers Association (HTLA)
Member, 2013 – present - Harris County Democrat Lawyers Association (HCDLA)
Member, 2015 – present
CLEs and speaking engagements
- American Law Institute CLE — Current Developments in Employment Law · July 2023 · Santa Fe, New Mexico · “Whistleblower Update”
- Houston Trial Lawyers Association — Annual Employment Law Update · 2022 · Employment Law Update
- NELA Houston · June 2022 · “The Seaman’s Protection Act”
- Dallas Bar Association, Labor and Employment Division · September 2021 · “The Anatomy of a Workers’ Compensation Retaliation Trial”
- NELA Houston · February 2021 · “Report from the Battlefield: Observations and Review from Ball v. Alleyton Resources Co.; Handling a Workers’ Compensation Retaliation Claim Through Trial”
- American Association for Justice Summer Convention, Admiralty Section CLE · July 2018 · “Overcoming Excursion and Recreational Releases”
Jeff lives in Houston with his wife Chantal — a pastor in residence at Redemption Church of Houston — and their three children. He plays the guitar and follows the San Francisco Giants and the Fresno State Bulldogs.
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