Karen C. Burgess

Karen Burgess is a trial lawyer, board certified in Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Specialization, who handles business disputes. Her practice includes trade secrets, oil and gas, contract, real estate, securities, partnership and fiduciary litigation—all areas of commercial litigation.

Thomson Reuters has named Karen a “Top 10 Super Lawyer in Texas” in its last four editions, ranking her #2 in Texas for 2025, and Chambers ranks Karen as a Band One Commercial Trial Lawyer. Lawdragon has repeatedly named Karen one of The 500 Leading Lawyers in America, and The Best Lawyers in America® (BL Rankings) lists Karen as a Best Lawyer for Commercial Litigation. In 2025, The Legal 500 named Karen an Austin Elite in its inaugural Austin Commercial Disputes Guide.

Karen is the Immediate Past President of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. She is a fellow and serves on the Texas State Committee of the American College of Trial Lawyers and is also a fellow of the International Society of Barristers. After two terms as the elected national treasurer of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), she currently serves as a presidential appointee to the National Board. Karen was a faculty member for ABOTA’s National Trial College at Yale Law School in 2018 and 2022. She is also a member of the American Law Institute. Locally, Karen was the 2018–2019 President of the Lloyd Lochridge American Inn of Court and has served as a co-chair of the Austin nominating committee for the Texas Bar Foundation.

As an Honorary Overseas Member of the Commercial Bar Association of the UK and Wales (COMBAR), Karen has twice been featured in its annual on-stage, Oxford-style debate at COMBAR’s Combined North American Meeting—in favor of the trial process for resolving commercial disputes in Boston, and for the merits of damages-based fees in Stockholm.

Karen enjoyed the honor of co-chairing the 2019 State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting and introducing keynote speeches by iconic newsman Dan Rather and acclaimed author Wil Haygood.

In 2011, Karen was selected a “Winning Woman” by Texas Lawyer, a designation reserved for only twenty attorneys in the state of Texas. The Travis County Women Lawyers Association chose Karen as Litigator of the Year for 2012.  

The University of Texas School of Law named her the 2018 Alumni Mentor of the Year, and Stephanie and Bill Whitehurst named a University of Texas School of Law Public Interest Fellowship in her honor.

Karen is a frequent speaker on disinformation and delivered the Dean’s Address for the Academy—Truth or Consequence: Protecting Justice and the Rule of Law Against a Crisis of Deception. Karen also presents on business torts, the Trade Secrets Act, the Fraudulent Transfer Act and story-telling as well as other litigation topics, and she has served as course director for the University of Texas Page Keeton Civil Litigation Seminar and TexasBarCLE’s Business Disputes Course. She has co-chaired and spoken at the Austin Bar Association’s Bench Bar conference and has presented at the Hidalgo County Bar Association’s David H. Hockema Civil Trial Law Conference, the annual Connecticut Legal Conference, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ annual conference, and the American Bar Association Intellectual Property Law Conference in Washington, D.C., among others. Karen has participated in the American College of Trial Lawyers’ Trial Bootcamps and ABOTA’s Master’s in Trial series, facilitated ABOTA’s Roundtable Summit on AI in Washington DC, and she has conducted on-stage interviews for the International Academy of Trial Lawyer’s annual meeting and TEX-ABOTA’s Santa Fe conference.

Karen is active in the community. She serves on the Board of Alfred Friendly Press Partners and the People’s Community Clinic Foundation, which she chaired in 2016. Karen has also served on the Foundation Board for the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, has done committee work for the Paramount Theatre, and is an elder of the Westlake Presbyterian Church.

Before practicing law in Austin, Karen earned her B.A. in Economics, Spanish, and Policy Studies from Rice University—where she had the opportunity to study at the Universidad Catolica in Valparaiso, Chile.

Karen is married to a commercial transactions attorney, Brian Burgess. Their two kids are recent college graduates.