Texas Appellate Lawyers

Appellate Law

15455 Dallas Parkway, Suite 540, Addison, TX 75001

Niles Illich practices criminal appellate law with Illich & Shin, PLLC, in Dallas. Before he and Grace E. Shin became colleagues, they spent nearly a decade opposing one another in appeals from Dallas County criminal convictions. They established the firm in 2026, bringing together his defense-side experience and her years representing the state. Much of Illich’s early appellate training came at the First Court of Appeals. Assigned his chambers’ criminal cases, he prepared opinions that passed first to his judge and then to a three-judge panel for review and revision. Brief writing remains his day-to-day work; his firm biography expressly excludes trial work. He holds Texas Board of Legal Specialization certification in criminal appellate law and helps write and grade the examination for that specialty. Illich earned his law degree at the University of Houston Law Center in 2009, following a 2007 doctorate from Texas A&M University. His Texas license dates to November 2009, and the State Bar lists him as eligible to practice. In a January 2024 Texas Bar Journal interview, he discussed a broader range of unpaid appellate assignments: defendants’ appeals and writs, family-law matters, and amicus work for organizations. He had also chaired the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association Amicus Curiae Brief Committee. All of that committee’s work, he explained, was pro bono. For his own caseload, he rejected a sharp distinction between paying and nonpaying matters, describing pro bono representation as ordinary case work.

Appellate Law

1 RIVERWAY, ste 2200, Houston, TX 77056

Wanda Fowler was a Justice on the Fourteenth Court of Appeals for almost 14 years before joining Wright Close & Barger, LLP as a partner. While on the Court she authored approximately 1900 opinions and decided approximately 3,800 more cases. In 2001, the other members of the Court elected her Acting Chief Justice for five months pending an appointment of a new chief justice and, in 2003, the Houston Chapter of the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists voted her Appellate Judge of the Year. She is a frequent speaker at Continuing Legal Education Seminars. Before joining the Court, Ms. Fowler was a commercial litigator in private practice, and was in-house legal counsel for GTE Mobilnet. Ms. Fowler is an American Arbitration Association (AAA) panelist and presides over arbitrations involving complex commercial disputes, insurance coverage matters, and construction cases. She has been appointed as a neutral or non-neutral arbitrator on a variety of matters. In addition, she has served as a mediator on a variety of litigation cases involving commercial transactions, energy law, insurance coverage, and personal injury claims.