First Court of Appeals

Place 4

Justice David Gunn joined the First Court of Appeals in October 2024.  Justice Gunn came to the Court after more than two decades of practicing appellate law as a partner at the Beck Redden law firm in Houston. 

Justice Gunn was born in Austin and grew up in Houston.  He earned two engineering degrees and two law degrees:

• B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas
• M.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• J.D. from Baylor Law School
• LL.M. from the University of Houston Law Center

After passing the bar, he worked as a court attorney for the Fourteenth Court of Appeals (1987-90).  He practiced appellate law from 1990-2024.  During his career, he presented oral argument in the Texas Supreme Court more than 30 times, as well as orally arguing before the Texas Courts of Appeals for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th Districts.  In addition, he orally argued federal appeals in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (normally at the Fifth Circuit’s courthouse in New Orleans, but sometimes in other cities, such as Austin, Houston, and Oxford, Mississippi), the Tenth Circuit in Denver, and the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. 

Justice Gunn is board-certified in civil appellate law.  He is a fellow in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.  He serves on the Pattern Jury Charge Committee for the State Bar of Texas.  Justice Gunn has written many articles about Texas law, starting with “Unpublished Opinions Shall not be Cited as Authority”:  The Emerging Contours of Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 90(i), 24 St. Mary’s L.J. 115 (1992), and Unsupported Points of Error on Appeal, 32 S. Tex. L. Rev. 105 (1990).  His most recent article is a 2024 article entitled The Ghost of Texas Supreme Court Fraud Jurisprudence:  How Later in Time DTPA Decisions Led Courts to Forget the First-in-Time Measure of Damages for Fraud, 76 Baylor Law Rev. 397 (2024).