GARY D. SARLES, PARTNER
Email: gsarles@sarleslaw.com

Gary D. Sarles is a founding partner of Sarles & Ouimet and the managing partner of the Dallas office. When forming the Firm in 1987, Mr. Sarles explained: “My goal in creating this Firm is to bring together great legal minds dedicated to providing legal services to our clients that are second to none.”

Mr. Sarles concentrates his practice in the areas of employment, commercial, personal injury, and insurance litigation. He also defends employers who have nonsubscribed to the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act in litigation and arbitrations across the State of Texas.

Mr. Sarles is actively involved with the Texas Association of Responsible Nonsubscribers (TXANS), assisting the Association and testifying before the Texas Legislature and Texas administrative agencies on various legal issues, including tort reform legislation, changes in insurance regulations governing the Texas trucking industry, and in opposing all forms of mandatory workers’ compensation insurance for Texas employers. He has authored several articles and is a frequent speaker before Texas employers regarding nonsubscriber issues, including the impact of tort reform legislation, changes in U.S. Department of Labor claims regulations, recent U.S. Department of Health & Human Services medical privacy regulations, and recent cases important to Texas employers. He has also authored articles and spoken on the steps necessary to becoming a nonsubscriber to the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act, how to implement a successful nonsubscriber program, and the defenses and litigation strategies available to nonsubscribers.

With over ten years of experience drafting, litigating and enforcing employee arbitration and non-compete agreements, Mr. Sarles has developed tremendous expertise in designing and implementing cost-effective employment agreements for Texas employers. He has spoken to the Risk Managers of the National Restaurant Association’s members regarding designing employee arbitration agreements to minimize the fees and costs of enforcing, and to expedite the enforcing of, such agreements in the state and federal courts. Mr. Sarles has also successfully defended numerous Texas employers in arbitration proceedings before the American Arbitration Association and JAMS/Endispute, Inc.

Mr. Sarles also is experienced in commercial and insurance litigation, representing both plaintiffs and defendants in such matters. His familiarity with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) enables him both to counsel employers about compliance with it and to represent them in claim litigation. Mr. Sarles frequently defends and prosecutes commercial and insurance lawsuits involving bad faith, breaches of warranty, the Deceptive Trade Practices Act (“DTPA”), and the Texas Insurance Code.

Mr. Sarles graduated first in his class and summa cum laude from Indiana University, with an Honors B.A. in 1983 and an A.S. in 1984. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, was one of six recipients of a Distinguished Alumni Scholarship, and his Senior Honors Thesis won the William Jennings Bryan Prize. The recipient of the Francis S. Kosmerl Scholarship, he attended Northwestern University Law School, where he was awarded a Juris Doctorate degree in 1987. While in law school, Mr. Sarles headed the school’s 1987 Seventh Circuit Region Championship Team in the National Moot Court Competition, received the American Jurisprudence Awards in Civil Procedure and Evidence, authored “Selective Service or Prosecution for the ‘Vocal’ Nonregistrants,” was Trial Counsel for the Honor Code Prosecutor’s Office, and was the Executive Editor of the school’s oldest legal publication, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.

Upon graduation, Mr. Sarles moved to Dallas, where he was licensed to practice law by the Texas Supreme Court in 1987. He is also admitted to practice in the United States District Courts for the Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Districts of Texas and in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He is a member of the Dallas Bar Association. Mr. Sarles may be reached at the Firm’s Dallas office.

Mr. Sarles is not board certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Mr. Sarles is not admitted in Illinois.

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