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Ralph Midkiff has more than twenty years experience successfully representing clients in major business litigation cases throughout the United States, including winning a world record securities arbitration award for $429 million in a case tried before the New York Stock Exchange. His practice includes representing clients in energy, oilfield services, petrochemicals, technology, financial services, securities, investments, money management, fraud, and other complex business and corporate litigation matters. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Rice University in 1981 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He was selected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi. He graduated with Honors from the University of Texas School of Law in 1984, where he was on the Texas Law Review and received the Order of the Coif (top ten percent of his class). Mr. Midkiff practiced with Porter & Clements, LLP from 1984 to 1993, where he was a partner from 1989 to 1993. He was a partner with Clements, O’Neill, Pierce, Wilson and Fulkerson, LLP from 1993 to 2004. He established Zummo & Midkiff, LLP in 2005 and was a partner there until 2008. He joined Chamberlain as a shareholder in 2008. Mr. Midkiff has broad experience in the types of business and corporate litigation generally encountered by companies, especially those in the energy, oil and gas, oilfield service, petrochemicals, technology, investment, and financial services industries. He has handled cases involving breach of contract, fraud, mergers and acquisitions, insurance coverage, unfair competition, tortious interference, investor and shareholder disputes, arbitration, employment disputes and executive compensation, protection of trade secrets and intellectual property, and many other business disputes. Mr. Midkiff has an engineering background that is especially advantageous for his clients whose business involves proprietary technology and processes. His business clients include public and private companies, both domestic and international. His representative clients include companies in oil and gas exploration and production, petrochemicals, refining, oilfield services, investment funds, private equity, insurance, software, real estate development, private investors, and money managers. A continuing part of his practice involves the defense and prosecution of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty cases seeking to recover losses from bad investments, securities and business transactions. He represents both plaintiffs and defendants on an hourly, contingent fee, and hybrid billing basis. He has handled cases for and against brokerage firms and stockbrokers, corporations, investment and commercial banks, insurance companies, officers and directors, partners, fiduciaries, and the like. He has handled cases involving financial losses arising from investments, securities, retirement savings, brokerage accounts, shareholder oppression, business acquisitions, insurance, partnerships, shareholder oppression, stock options, executive compensation, corporate wrongdoing, derivative suits, oil and gas ventures, real estate, trusts and estates, breach of fiduciary duty, forgery, self-dealing, kickbacks, conversion, theft of funds, churning, unsuitability, and other dissipation of assets. In the securities area, he began his career defending major banks and brokerage firms, but for the past ten years has also represented numerous customers, investors, retired persons, companies, and shareholders as plaintiff in suits to recover their losses. |
