Join the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club as we welcome
Judge Grant Dorfman, Texas Business Court Eleventh Division
"An Overview of the New Texas Business Courts"
Governor Abbott appointed Grant Dorfman to the new Eleventh Business Court Division in Houston effective September 1, 2024, and his colleagues elected him to serve as the Administrative Presiding Judge for the initial two-year term of the Court. Judge Dorfman previously served as Judge of the 129th and 334th District Courts of Harris County. In between his terms of judicial service, Judge Dorfman worked as Senior In-House Counsel in charge of litigation for Nabors Industries, the world’s largest land-based drilling contractor; as an Of Counsel attorney with Sheehy, Ware & Pappas; a mediator and arbitrator, and state court visiting judge; and, most recently, as the Deputy First Assistant to the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
A native Texan, Judge Dorfman graduated from Brown University with an A.B. in Honors History magna cum laude and was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa. He also obtained a Master of Studies (M.St.) in History and Political Philosophy from Oxford University and a J.D. from the Yale Law School. After law school, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and, prior to taking the bench, practiced commercial litigation for ten years with two Houston law firms: Susman Godfrey and Ogden, Gibson, White & Broocks.
Judge Dorfman currently serves on the boards of the University of Houston Law Review, the Alley Theatre, HSPVA Friends (supporting the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts), the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, and the Texas Association of Retired, Senior and Former Judges. He teaches as an adjunct faculty member at the South Texas College of Law, and has in the past served as a member of the faculty of the National Judicial College and as an adjunct faculty member of the University of Houston Law Center. A life fellow of the Houston Bar Foundation and a sustaining life fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, Judge Dorfman is also a member of the American Law Institute and the Federalist Society, and served as an officer on the Houston Bar Association’s Communities in Schools and Professionalism Committees; as an ASTAR (Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource) Judge; as judicial liaison to the HBA Securities Litigation & Arbitration Section; and on the State Bar Pattern Jury Charge Committee and the Supreme Court Code of Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee.
$30 meeting fee includes program, lunch*, tax & tip.
No RSVP required or taken (for regular meetings).
Pay at the door cash, check, or credit card.
Business/business casual attire please.
Free parking in the restaurant's parking lot.
Please arrive early/timely as seating on a first come and paid basis. We expect a sell-out!
*Lunch includes a salad, various breads, two options for your entree, ice tea, and delicious cookies (or similar desserts). We ask that you please limit your special requests.