Meet the Law Practice Management Committee

Penny Robe, Committee Chair

currently serves as president of Robe Law Firm, which provides a full range of legal services and focuses on three main areas of practice: probate-related matters, family law matters, and business law and corporate transactions.

Prior to opening Robe Law Firm, she spent a decade as in-house corporate counsel, working for such companies as Pinnacle Anesthesia Consultants, PBS&J, and Star’s Edge International. Her early career experiences include serving as an attorney and officer on active duty in the United States Air Force and serving as an assistant district attorney for the 64th and 242nd district courts and as acting county attorney for Hale County, Texas.

Joshua Massingill, Subcommittee Chair

is an attorney practicing in Cedar Park, Texas. He serves on the Success-Werx Board of Advisors, mentors young entrepreneurs in Leander ISD’s INCubatorEDU program and is active in his church. He served as Legislative Counsel to a United States Representative in Washington, DC until 2014, when he decided to return to Texas for reasons every Texan will inherently understand. As Counsel to the Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, he managed a broad portfolio of legal and regulatory issues and contributed to significant legislative reforms. He is passionate about the Dallas Cowboys and providing his clients with excellent service. He lives in Cedar Park with his wife, Allie, and daughters, Zoe and Aimee.

William H. (Bill) Betts, Jr., Advisory Member

is a shareholder with Betts, Walters & Mutscher, PC in Brenham, Texas, whose primary practice is in the area of real estate, probate, trust and related litigation.  Bill is a former Section Representative to the State Bar Board of Directors and Chairman of the Property & Space Committee, as well as the former Section Chair of the General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Section of the SBOT.  He is presently a member, and former chairman, of the District 8 Grievance Committee.

Erich Birch

is an environmental lawyer with Birch, Becker & Moorman, LLP, where he assists clients with permitting, enforcement, audits, and other environmental and regulatory matters.  He recently served on the Board of Directors of the State Bar of Texas, is a former Chair of the Bar’s Alternate Dispute Resolution Section, and frequently speaks at Bar CLE events.  He is an arbitrator and mediator and provides neutral services to the U.S. EPA, the American Arbitration Association, the Better Business Bureau, and is a Credentialed Mediator.  He provides pro bono environmental assistance through the TCEQ EnviroMentor program, and is also a Professional Engineer in Texas.  Erich has a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University and a law degree from the University of Houston Law Center.

Debra L. Bruce

Debra L. Bruce is President of Lawyer-Coach LLC, which provides coaching and training for lawyers on leadership and management, team effectiveness, and productivity. Capitalizing on 18 years in law practice and 20 years coaching, she helps lawyers adapt effectively to the unprecedented changes occurring in the legal industry today. She emphasizes 3 Ps for their practice: Productivity, Profitability and Personal Fulfillment.

Debra was the first lawyer in Texas to be credentialed by the International Coach Federation. She has served as the Chair of the Law Practice Management Committee of the Houston Bar Association, served on a number of ABA Law Practice Division committees, and is currently the Co-Chair of the Productivity & Knowledge Strategy Committee of the ABA Law Practice Division.

Matthew E. Eilers

is Principal Attorney Editor in the Corporate and M&A section of Practical Law at Thomson Reuters, where he creates, edits and maintains content offering practical legal guidance in the industry. Previously he was Jurisdiction Lead at Westlaw Doc & Form Builder (formerly New Product Manager at ProDoc), leading teams of attorneys and legal professionals to author, edit and develop legal technology and document assembly form templates in diverse subject areas (such as business organizations, immigration, family law, litigation, real estate, estate planning and probate). Prior to ProDoc, he spent a year on sabbatical in Guanajuato, Mexico. Before that, he was the managing partner of Tuck & Eilers LLP, a general practice law firm in Austin, Texas.

Robert Guest

is a criminal defense lawyer and managing partner at Guest and Gray Law Firm in Forney, Texas. Guest and Gray provide services in criminal defense, family law, estate planning, and election law, with additional offices in Plano and Rockwall. Robert is a former Kaufman County Bar President, and a former member of the State Bar Board of Directors (District 1, 2012-2015). As a Director, Robert frequently spoke to county bar associations on the State Bar Act, member services, and ethics. Robert is a former prosecutor (Bowie and Kaufman County) and a former public defender (Wichita County). Robert is currently Vice President of the Forney Downtown Business Association, and also plays bass for Booty and the HoeFIsh (90’s cover band).

Brian A. Hall

is the managing partner of Hall Law in Austin, Texas.  He is the founder of TraverseGC.com, a fixed-fee subscription-based provider of general counsel services to companies.  He has represented enterprise Internet and technology companies, startups, and brand owners throughout the world with their intellectual property, Internet law, and business law issues.  Brian has extensive experience with corporate transactions involving an entity’s business-critical IP.  He has served as counsel to private, venture-backed companies, public companies, and venture capital funds.  Brian has also litigated cases involving trademark, domain name, copyright, software trade secret, online defamation, and privacy/personal rights issues.  He regularly advises clients on sports and entertainment law issues, with a focus on endorsement agreements.

Dirk Jordan

received his BA from Louisiana State University and his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law. He practices commercial and construction litigation and also has a mediation practice. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law teaching a course on how to manage your law firm. He has been a member of the Inns of Court for twenty-three years and has recently been elected to the Board of Trustees for the American Inns of Court.

John Meredith

is the Chief Operating Officer for Chamberlain Hrdlicka, which is a diversified law firm with multiple practice areas including tax, litigation, corporate, IP, real estate and estate planning. After graduating from Baylor Law School, he practiced trial law in Houston. He worked at nonprofits including Aspiring Youth where he was the founding President and General Counsel and at SpringSpirit as Executive Director and General Counsel. He has worked in law practice management at Greenberg Traurig as Business Director, Beck Redden as Executive Director and Chamberlain Hrdlicka as COO.

Théda W. Page

opened The Page Law Firm in 2002, after many years in corporate America.  Her practice areas are bankruptcy and family law.  She is a member of the Bankruptcy and Family Law Sections of the State Bar of Texas and the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys.  Ms. Page serves on the Council of the Bankruptcy Section of the State Bar of Texas.  She is the current president of the Plano Bar Association

Ms. Page is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  She is married to Julian Brice and lives in Frisco.  They are members of One Community Church in Plano.

Dana C. Palmer

studied law firm business and management programs with many of the world’s leading experts. He has trained, supervised, and managed family law attorneys from beginners to seasoned career family law attorneys to improve the operations and value of their services.

Dana graduated from the Dedman School of Law at SMU and founded his firm in 2006. Dana has focused the firm exclusively on Family Law, Estate Planning and Probate. He created and trademarked the website: SoftDivorce.com.

Dana’s ultimate mission is to change the way people approach the divorce process. He views himself as the “guard at the gate” within his law firm, as he strives to prevent divorces and heal as many marriages as possible.

Cristal Robinson

has a strong background in the legal, financial, and accounting sectors. Besides her law degree, she has an MBA with an emphasis in accounting and a finance degree. With over two decades in business, she has helped many businesses and non-profits to start, expand, or get back on track, as well as over a decade of helping people with family, estate, and bankruptcy.

Technology helped her move her office to North Carolina while still practicing in Texas last summer. That experience along with her past activities of helping other attorneys use technology in their practice pushed her to open another business, Robinson Consultation. She will help solo and small firms use technology while learning how to use technology in the practice of law.

Mark Unger

is a family lawyer, mediator, and consultant in San Antonio, Texas. He has been practicing family law almost exclusively since 1996. He started his mediation practice in 2009, after becoming credentialed in both general and family law mediation. He has been highly involved with the integration of technology and law since approximately 1998, and he launched Muse Legal Technology in 2015 to help solo practitioners and small firms increase efficiency via the use of technology in their law practices. Mark also serves on the State Bar Computer & Technology Section Council, San Antonio Bar’s Family Law Section Board, Supreme Court’s Judicial Committee on Information Technology, and Technology Section of the San Antonio Bar.

Jessica Vittorio

is a business attorney based in Dallas, Texas. After graduating from Baylor Law School with a J.D. she started her career by serving as primary Legislative Counsel for a member of the United States House of Representatives. Following her tenure with Congress she opened her law practice in Dallas, which focuses on transactional business law – primarily working with young entrepreneurs and startup companies. Jessica is an active member, and frequent speaker, in the entrepreneurial community in Dallas, while also serving as an adjunct professor of Business Law at Collin College.

Committee Members Not Pictured

Diana Brown
Cameron Brumfield
Steve Fischer
Reginald A. Hirsch
Shari Goldsberry, Board Advisor
Melissa Astala Khan
Janet McCullar
Emily Miller, Alternate Board Advisor
Kristin Postell
Gregory Sampson
Scott Skelton
William Soffar