The Hon. Grant Dorfman

Former State District Court Judge Grant Dorfman currently serves as a Visiting Judge in the State of Texas, and also mediates and arbitrates civil disputes. He was appointed to the 129th District Court of Harris County by Texas Governor Rick Perry and served from 2002-2008. He was subsequently appointed Judge of the 334th District Court and served from October 2013 until January 2017. In between his judicial appointments, Judge Dorfman was the in-house attorney in charge of litigation for Nabors Industries, the world’s largest land-based drilling contractor.

Judge Dorfman obtained an A.B. in Honors History from Brown University, 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 practiced commercial litigation for ten years with two Houston law firms before taking the bench: Susman Godfrey and Ogden, Gibson, White & Broocks. Most recently, Judge Dorfman was Of Counsel to Sheehy, Ware & Pappas, where his practice centered on commercial and insurance defense litigation, appeals, and alternative dispute resolution.

Judge Dorfman has also served as a member of the faculty of the National Judicial College and been an adjunct faculty member of the University of Houston Law Center. A Fellow of the Houston Bar Foundation and a Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, Judge Dorfman has also served on numerous committees of the Houston Bar Association Communities, as an ASTAR (Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource) Judge, and as a member of the State Bar Pattern Jury Charge Committee and of the Texas Supreme Court Code of Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee.