There is a category of legal error that doesn't get nearly enough attention, and it is not the kind caused by bad lawyers. It is the kind caused by competent lawyers who are simply in the wrong courtroom — attorneys who are skilled and diligent in their area of practice, but who step outside it and into a matter they do not fully understand.

We call them dabblers. And their clients, almost without exception, pay for it.

What Is a Dabbler?

A dabbler is a lawyer who takes a case outside their genuine area of expertise. This is not a term of disrespect — it is a description of a structural problem in how legal services are delivered.

Every attorney who passes the bar exam is technically licensed to practice in any area of law. There is no specialty licensing requirement the way there is in medicine. Your orthopedic surgeon cannot finish checking your knee, smile at you, and say, "Looks great — now let's take a look at that toothache." Your attorney can. And sometimes does.

Most of the time, dabblers are not taking cases cynically. They take them because a client asked, because the matter seemed manageable, because one area of law looks similar to another from a distance. Sometimes they work out — a simple closing, a contract review, a matter that resolves without needing deep expertise. The word "simple" is doing a lot of work in those sentences.

When the matter is not simple, the results range from suboptimal to genuinely catastrophic. The worst outcomes happen when a dabbler compounds their inexperience by doing exactly what the client demands rather than what the law requires — taking on the client's certainty about the right strategy as a substitute for their own legal judgment.

The Perfect Storm: A Case Study in What Not to Do

A few years ago, a law school professor in Virginia filed a $108 million defamation lawsuit against two former students who had filed Title IX complaints against him. Those Title IX allegations were still pending when the defamation action was filed.

The firm that filed the defamation case was also the firm defending the professor against the Title IX complaints. It was a technology law firm with no defamation experience. And in drafting the twenty-six-page defamation complaint — apparently uncritically incorporating what the client wanted to say — the firm effectively admitted in a public legal filing that the Title IX allegations it was simultaneously defending were true.

The professor justified his $108 million damages figure by arguing that the two students had caused irreparable harm to his reputation and future "marketability." The complaint laid out, in detail designed to support those damages, facts that destroyed both.

The legal commentary at the time captured it well: it was difficult to imagine a complaint more damaging to the plaintiff than the one his own lawyers filed on his behalf. A matter that had been quietly proceeding below the public radar became a national story the moment the complaint hit the docket — not because of what the defendants had done, but because of what the plaintiff's lawyers had put in writing.

Three questions hang over that case that are worth sitting with:

• Did anyone at the law firm advise the professor against filing this action, or advise him against the specific strategy the complaint reflected?
• If they did, would he have listened?
• Would the firm have proceeded if the client's deep pockets had not been funding the matter?

The uncomfortable answer to all three may be: probably not, probably not, and probably not. That combination — a client who is certain he is right, a firm without the subject-matter depth to push back effectively, and a fee arrangement that removes the incentive to do so — is precisely how these disasters happen.

Why This Matters Specifically for Business Litigation

The defamation case is dramatic and public. Most dabbler disasters are quieter, which makes them easier to miss — but not less damaging to the people they affect.

Texas closely held company and shareholder disputes are among the areas where generalist representation most consistently produces bad outcomes. The reasons are specific:

The Law Changed in 2014 and Has Kept Evolving

The Texas Supreme Court's decision in Ritchie v. Rupe significantly narrowed the remedies available to minority shareholders in Texas corporations, eliminating receivership as an option. Lawyers who learned Texas shareholder oppression law before 2014 and have not stayed current practice a different law than the one that exists today. Advising a client that certain remedies are available when they are not — or failing to advise them about the LLC-specific pathways that remain robust after Ritchie — is a substantive error that can derail an otherwise viable case.

The Claims Must Be Correctly Categorized

Texas shareholder disputes often involve overlapping theories — breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, fraud, conversion, unjust enrichment, derivative claims, direct claims. Getting the categorization wrong has real consequences: direct and derivative claims have different standing requirements, different procedural rules, and different recovery structures. Pleading a direct claim for what Texas courts treat as derivative harm, or vice versa, can result in dismissal, loss of standing, and fee-shifting against the client.

Attorney's Fees Turn on Pleading Decisions Made at the Start

Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 38.001, attorney's fees are available for certain qualifying claims — but the analysis of which claims qualify, how they must be pleaded, and how fees must be segregated across qualifying and non-qualifying theories is nuanced and contested. Attorneys who do not understand the post-Chapa segregation requirements, or who do not plead contract claims alongside fiduciary duty claims where the facts support both, routinely leave fee recovery on the table that a specialist would have preserved.

Valuation Is a Specialty Within a Specialty

The financial outcome in most shareholder oppression cases turns on business valuation — what is the minority's interest actually worth, and has the majority manipulated the financial record to suppress that value? Recognizing the manipulation tactics (excessive compensation, related-party transactions, accelerated depreciation, revenue timing), engaging the right expert, and building the valuation argument from the first day of litigation rather than the week before the expert designation deadline are skills that come from repeated experience with these cases. A generalist who handles two shareholder matters a year is not developing them.

Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 12 Is Rarely Used But Often Should Be

In shareholder disputes where the majority's law firm claims to represent the corporation, a properly filed motion to show authority under Rule 12 can challenge whether that representation is authorized — potentially forcing the appointment of independent corporate counsel and removing a significant tactical advantage from the majority. It is one of the most underdeployed tools in minority shareholder litigation. Attorneys who are not regular practitioners in this area typically do not think to file it.

The Other Half of the Problem: Clients Who Are Certain

The professor in the Virginia defamation case was not a passive participant. He knew what he wanted the lawsuit to say. He had a theory of damages. He had a number — $108 million — that felt right to him. What he did not have was a lawyer with the expertise and the standing to tell him that the theory was wrong, the strategy was self-defeating, and the complaint as drafted would harm him more than the defendants ever had.

In our practice, we see a version of this regularly: a minority shareholder who has been treated badly — genuinely, illegally badly — who arrives with strong views about exactly how the case should be litigated. Sometimes those views are right. Often they are not. The client who has been wronged is not always the best architect of the legal strategy for obtaining redress, particularly when their judgment about the other side's conduct has been shaped by months or years of conflict.

The value of a specialist is not only knowing what to do. It is having enough standing in the area of law to tell the client what not to do — and having enough professional confidence to hold that position even when the client pushes back. A dabbler who is uncertain about the law is in a poor position to resist a client who is certain about the facts.

The Moral of the Story, Made Specific

The original moral is right: work with attorneys who are steeped in the type of law you need help with. The defamation case makes it vivid. But the same principle applies less dramatically — and with equally serious financial consequences — in shareholder oppression matters, business divorce cases, minority member disputes in Texas LLCs, and limited partnership conflicts.

When you are selecting counsel for a Texas closely held company dispute, the right questions are not whether the attorney is smart, experienced in general, or comes highly recommended for other kinds of work. The right questions are:

• How many shareholder oppression or minority member cases do you handle in a given year?
• Have you litigated cases in Texas courts post-Ritchie v. Rupe, and what is your current read on the available remedies?
• How do you approach the direct versus derivative claim analysis in your initial case assessment?
• What is your valuation strategy in cases where the majority controls the financial records?
• Do you use Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 12 motions in shareholder disputes, and if not, why not?

A specialist answers those questions specifically and confidently. A dabbler answers them generally or not at all — and then tells you what you want to hear.

Hopkins Centrich: Texas Shareholder Dispute Specialists

Hopkins Centrich PLLC is AV Preeminent® rated by Martindale-Hubbell in both 2025 and 2026 — the highest peer-reviewed legal rating in the industry. Shareholder oppression, minority member disputes, closely held company conflicts, and business divorce cases are what we do. Not occasionally. Consistently.

Our attorneys bring big-firm depth — including Baker Donelson — to a practice designed to deliver the kind of individualized, partner-level attention that large firms typically reserve for their largest clients. Kirby Hopkins is a Vanderbilt and UT Law graduate, a former Texas Court of Appeals briefing attorney, and a 20-year veteran of complex Texas business litigation. Joseph Centrich is a UT Austin Business Honors and UT Law Review of Litigation alumnus who has played a central role in a $7 billion class action defense, winning in four states.

We prepare every matter as if it is going to trial. That preparation is what produced a $32 million verdict in L&S Pro-Line LLC v. Garrett Gagliano in Montgomery County — among the top 20 Texas business verdicts of 2021. It is also what makes our settlements worth accepting: the other side knows we are ready to try the case.

We will tell you the truth about your situation, including the parts that are uncomfortable. We will not simply execute your litigation strategy if we believe it is the wrong one. That is what a specialist does — and it is what clients in these cases need.

If you are a minority shareholder, LLC member, or limited partner in a Texas closely held company dispute, call Hopkins Centrich. The consultation is free. The cost of retaining a dabbler is not.