Leah Bhimani Buratti

Leah is an experienced and pragmatic litigator whose legal strategies have helped her clients prevail on dispositive motions, negotiate favorable settlements, win hundred-million-dollar jury verdicts, and—perhaps most importantly—achieve desired outcomes in ways that make good business sense. Known for her communication skills, Leah has repeatedly proven her ability to persuasively explain highly complex technical, economic, and legal concepts to judges and juries.

Leah’s practice focuses on intellectual property and commercial litigation, including patent infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, and non-competes disputes. She has extensive experience representing technology companies, including in cases involving business enterprise software, mobile device hardware and software, automotive sales platforms, and interactive media guides. She has also represented clients across a spectrum of other industries, including energy, biotechnology, and consumer products, and she has conducted investigations for international banks. She has litigated in federal district courts and state courts across the country, before the International Trade Commission, and has handled federal appeals. She also regularly serves as local counsel in the Western District of Texas.

Providing pro bono legal services to asylum seekers is a longstanding and meaningful aspect of Leah’s practice. Since 2014, Leah has served on the Board of Directors of American Gateways, a non-profit providing legal services to asylum seekers. In 2022, the Austin Bar Foundation honored Leah with the David H. Walter Community Excellence Award in recognition of her commitment to pro bono work. She also received the Access to Justice Award from American Gateways in 2012.

Before joining the firm, Leah practiced with McKool Smith for a decade, focusing on high-stakes patent infringement cases. Leah previously served as a law clerk for the Honorable Carl E. Stewart of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Honorable Jorge A. Solis of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

• University of Texas School of Law, Adjunct Professor for Trade Secret Law, 2023, 2024
• Federal Bar Association, Austin Chapter Board of Directors, Treasurer, 2023-2024
• Austin Intellectual Property Law Association
• American Gateways Board of Directors, Member 2014–2023; Board President, 2020–2022
• The Honorable Lee Yeakel Intellectual Property Inn of Court
• Mother Attorneys Mentoring Association (MAMAs)
• Travis County Women Lawyers Association
• Texas Bar Foundation Fellow
• Austin Bar Association

• Austin Monthly, Top Attorney, 2022-2023
• Austin Bar Foundation David H. Walter Community Excellence Award, 2022
• Rising Stars, published by Thomson Reuters, 2018
• American Gateways Access to Justice Award, 2012

• Doughty v. Durstcrew. Assisted a former CEO residing in the UK with quashing a subpoena directing him to appear in Florida for a deposition in the midst of the Covid pandemic. The subpoena was quashed by the District Court for the Western District of Texas, which found that any form of deposition (including a videotaped deposition) would present an undue burden on the former executive.

• Unwired Planet v. Apple. Represented Unwired Planet in a patent infringement lawsuit in the Northern District of California regarding speech recognition, app downloading, location services, and push messaging technologies.

• DFS Monitorship. As part of an appointment by the New York State Department of Financial Services to act as the monitor of an international financial institution, conducted a review of the bank’s implementation of compliance policies and procedures, entailing comprehensive analysis of account files, interpretation of transactional data, and interviews with current and former bank employees.

• Rovi v. Comcast. Represented Rovi Corp., TiVo Corp., and Xperi Corp. at the International Trade Commission in investigations involving numerous patents related to interactive search, interactive television program guides, and DVR technology. Secured an exclusion order as to infringing products.

• Parallel Networks v. IBM and Parallel Networks v. Microsoft. Represented Parallel Networks in patent infringement lawsuits in the District of Delaware involving dynamic web page generation technology.

• Versata v. SAP. Represented Versata in a jury trial on damages against SAP involving Versata’s pricing patent and obtained a substantial verdict for Versata.

• Versata v. Autodata. Represented Versata as both plaintiff and defendant in several actions spanning multiple courts, including the Eastern District of Texas, the Western District of Texas, and Michigan state court. Claims in these litigations ranged from breach of contract to trade secret misappropriation and patent infringement.

• ParkerVision v. Qualcomm. Represented ParkerVision in patent infringement lawsuits in the Middle District of Florida involving several patents related to direct conversion receiver and transmitter technology for use in high-performance wireless telecommunications devices.

• 3rd Annual Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace Panel, a USPTO presentation at SXSW, March 7, 2024
• Quoted in EDTX Eclipses WDTX As Top Patent Venue, Law360 Analysis, Dani Kass, February 7, 2024
• A Spotlight on Pro Bono Attorney Leah Bhimani Buratti, State Bar of Texas Immigration Bulletin, a publication of the Immigration & Nationality Law Section, Summer 2023
• Local Rules and Pleadings, A Day in Federal Court CLE, Travis County Women Lawyers Association, May 12, 2023
• A Fresh Look at the Jury Data in Waco Patent Trials, Law360 Expert Analysis, May 15, 2023 (co-authored with Lewis Tandy)
• The Ins and Outs of Patent Damages, panel presentation at UT Law CLE's 27th Annual Advanced Patent Law Institute, October 2022
• East vs. West: The District Makes a Difference, Advanced IP Law Course, TexasBarCLE, February 16, 2022 (with Michael C. Smith)
• The Biggest Verdicts: An Analysis of the Federal Circuit’s Treatment of High-Dollar Jury Awards in Patent Cases, 20th Annual UT Intellectual Property Law Journal Symposium: Financing and Damages in IP Litigation, March 5, 2021 (with Joel Thollander)
• Admission of Evidence: How do I get that Tweet (and Other Evidence) Admitted? Austin Bar Association Civil Litigation Section CLE, November 15, 2019 (with the Honorable Robert Pitman and Mark Dietz)
• Keep E-Discovery Costs Down in Patent Litigation, The Legal Intelligencer, January 14, 2013 (co-authored with Victoria Wicken)
• The Tenth Circuit Determines that Speaking Spanish is Not an Issue of Public Concern and Misapplies the Mount Healthy Test to a Prior Restraint Claim, 60 SMU L. Rev. 275 (2007)