Manufacturers, distributors, health care providers and others who need a strong and coordinated litigation defense turn to Dawn Wright for her experience as trial and negotiation counsel. Dawn’s proficiency in managing and leading diverse teams of lawyers at the national level includes negotiating thousands of cases across multiple states, as well as the extensive coordination and development of expert witnesses.
Dawn’s clients include major product manufacturers and chemical distributors in products liability and mass tort litigation. She also works with health care companies in a range of litigation matters and handles commercial business dispute litigation. In all areas, she is known for her ability to see the big picture and ensure a coordinated defense.
Dawn has extensive experience representing manufacturers and sellers of automotive components, railroad engines and other components, seat belt and restraint systems, cranes, forklifts, aviation products, and personal watercraft. She has led the defense of toxic substances cases involving asbestos, silica, benzene, TCE, PFAs, chlorinated solvents, and other substances. She has managed, defended and resolved cases involving thousands of plaintiffs for national product manufacturers in trial courts across Texas, and served as co-national asbestos litigation counsel in jurisdictions throughout the country.
Serving as national trial counsel, Dawn has implemented strategies for discovery and developed and coordinated expert witnesses to give clients a strategically managed defense. She is often called upon to come in specifically as negotiation counsel, working to evaluate the best path to a case’s successful resolution.
In her work with health care companies, Dawn represents providers in managed care reimbursement disputes, as well as issues involving all types of business agreements. She puts her experience coordinating strategy on the national level to work, streamlining the response to maximize consistency and cost-efficiency and mitigate further disputes.
As a leader within the firm, Dawn chairs Thompson Coburn’s Working Parent affinity group.
experience
- Served as national counsel for Fortune 500 companies, managing and directing the defense of thousands of personal injury and wrongful death claims in numerous states.
- Represent a major auto manufacturer as national counsel, trying cases to defense verdicts in product liability cases
- Represent health care provider in disputes with insurance companies involving various payors
Professional
- Dallas Bar Association; Litigation Section
- State Bar of Texas; Litigation Section
- American Bar Association; Litigation Section
- Texas Association of Defense Counsel
- DRI – The Voice of the Defense Bar
- National Association of Women Lawyers
- Planning Committee, 2007-2008
- Fellow, Texas Bar Foundation
Community
- YWCA of Metropolitan Dallas
- Founding Member, Young Leaders Board, Executive Committee
- Women with Promise
- Founding Member
- TACA – The Arts Community Alliance
- Board Member
- Grants Panelist
- The University of Texas at Austin
- Ambassador’s Council
- Hope’s Door
- Listed in The Best Lawyers in America® (by BL Rankings), 2019-2025
- Mass Tort Litigation / Class Actions – Defendants
- Personal Injury Litigation – Defendants
- Product Liability Litigation – Defendants
- Listed in Texas Super Lawyers® (by Thomson Reuters) for Class Action/Mass Torts, General Litigation, 2004, 2006
I’m a big fan of college sports, especially football and basketball. I’m a Longhorn through and through, but my husband and I travel in the fall to support several SEC teams. I am also a big fan of March Madness, although I never seem to have a winning bracket. My husband and I love to travel, and since he is a pilot, we are lucky to be able to easily visit many parts of the country.