Plaintiff Forum Control in Business Court: The Filing Choice and the Waiver That Cannot Be Undone

Mr. Stewart earned his law degree at Duke University School of Law, cum laude, where he served as Executive Editor of the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy and sat on the Moot Court Board. He holds a B.A. from Brigham Young University, where he was a University Scholar and a member of Pi Sigma Alpha. He is admitted in Texas and before the U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Northern, and Eastern Districts of Texas, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

He chairs Steptoe’s Commercial Trials & Litigation practice and also practices in the firm’s Energy, Energy Litigation, Insolvency & Restructuring, Data Centers, and Crisis Management groups. Lawdragon 500 named him a Leading Energy Lawyer in 2025, and Legal 500 listed him in its Houston City Elite for Commercial Disputes the same year. Super Lawyers has recognized him in Texas for Business Litigation and General Litigation from 2021 through 2025, following selection as a Rising Star in 2013 and from 2016 through 2020. Benchmark Litigation placed him on its Under 40 Hot List from 2016 through 2019 and named him a Future Star from 2015 through 2024.

His recent writing addresses Texas forum and procedure directly: “Texas Business Court Jurisdiction Update: HB 40’s Limits, Retroactivity, and Aggregation Questions” (August 13, 2025), “Private Judges in Texas: An Increasingly Popular Option to State Courts and Arbitration” (January 8, 2026), and “A New Era for Summary Judgment Practice in Texas Courts” in Texas Lawyer (September 24, 2025, with a January 8, 2026 update). He has also published “SEC’s Allowance of Mandatory Arbitration for IPOs Raises Both Opportunities and Risks for Securities Issuers” (October 17, 2025), “Anatomy of a Persuasive Closing Argument” (January 14, 2026), “Rules Governing AI in Courtrooms Lag Behind Tech Advancement” in Bloomberg Law (July 22, 2025), and “Trump Tariffs Behoove Business to Plan Ahead to Reduce Cost Risk” in Bloomberg Tax (March 16, 2026). He presented “A New Era for Summary Judgment Practice in Texas” to the State Bar of Texas Litigation and Appellate Sections in June 2026 and to the State Bar of Texas Appellate Section at Baylor Law School in April 2026. Other engagements include the Association of Corporate Counsel, Houston Chapter (February 2026), the AI Governance & Strategy Summit in New York (May 2025), the BYU Law School Trial Academy (April 2025), the University of Miami School of Law (November 2024), the International Bar Association Conference (September 2024), and the American College of Healthcare Executives, Southeast Texas Chapter (September 2024). He serves as Houston Chapter Chair of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society and is a Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation.

Beyond the pending Texas Business Court matter, he represented a commercial real estate developer at trial and on appeal in a business divorce carrying eight-figure fraud and breach of fiduciary duty claims, which ended in a take-nothing judgment. He defended a renewable energy company in a bet-the-company Delaware Chancery Court action against a joint venture partner’s emergency injunctive relief request, resolving it so the client retained control of a key energy project. For the trustee of a bankrupt oil and gas company he pursued tens of millions in fraudulent transfers against dozens of defendants and won summary judgment on the “good faith” defense, affirmed by the Fifth Circuit. In trade secrets and employee mobility matters he has obtained temporary restraining orders and injunctions against former employees and their new employers, defeated an energy company’s request for a temporary injunction against departing employees, and defended energy companies against misappropriation and tortious interference claims. He defended a business owner against claims by a former management team seeking additional bonus and equity following a nine-figure business sale. His energy and healthcare work includes declaratory judgments over disputed oil and gas assets in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas; AAA arbitration on environmental indemnification duties; summary judgment for healthcare clients against a $14.5 million fraudulent billing claim, unanimously affirmed; and the defeat of putative class actions brought against a hospital system.