Education
Notre Dame School of Law, J.D. (Editor-in-Chief, Notre Dame Law Review)
Ball State University, M.A.
Friends University, B.A.
Judicial Clerkship experience
Law Clerk to the Honorable Thomas M. Reavley, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Admissions
State Bar of Texas
United States Supreme Court
United States Court of Appeals – Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits
Northern District of Texas
Southern District of Texas
Eastern District of Texas
Western District of Texas
Experience
Jonathan Bridges joined Sbaiti & Company in 2020. Bridges is an accomplished trial lawyer with a track record of success at the highest levels.
Before attending law school, Bridges spent five years teaching English to at-risk high school students in Kansas City and Indianapolis. He completed a master’s degree in English at Ball State University with a perfect academic record. And he attended Notre Dame Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Notre Dame Law Review and graduated magna cum laude.
After law school, Bridges clerked for the Honorable Thomas M. Reavley of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and then joined elite Texas law firm Susman Godfrey LLP as an associate in 2001. Just 4 years later, Bridges made partner at Susman, where he played significant roles in several of the firm’s highest profile cases, including Brent Redstone’s minority shareholder oppression suit, the successful defense of Luminant in Alcoa’s $500-million-dollar lawsuit, and the record-setting Gold Bank qui tam suit under the federal False Claims Act.
Bridges left Susman in 2015 to accept an assistant professorship at UNT’s brand new law school in downtown Dallas. There he taught property law and a host of trial-related courses, as well as upper-level courses on brief writing. And he assisted in the school’s battle for accreditation.
Regarding his recent reuniting with former Susman Godfrey colleague Mazin Sbaiti in the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic, Bridges said this: “I never lost contact with my friend Mazin and have admired his successes from just down the street. Faced with the choice between largely online legal education vs. getting back into the action with the team at Sbaiti, the decision was easy to make, and I’m excited to be back in the trenches.”
During 2 decades of practicing law, Bridges has handled high-stakes commercial litigation involving real estate, oil and gas interests, coal mining, power plants, zoning, eminent domain, patents, copyrights, and movie theater chains. He has pursued expertise in qui tam litigation under the federal False Claims Act, in minority-shareholder rights, and in all facets of complex civil litigation.
Bridges has handled complex, multi-million-dollar civil cases in venues across the U.S., including the Supreme Court of the United States, the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits, the Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Districts of Texas, the Northern District of West Virginia, the Southern District of New York, the Southern District of Indiana, the Eastern District of Louisiana, the Eastern District of Missouri, the Western District of Oklahoma, and various state courts in Texas, California, Maryland, Oklahoma, and West Virginia.
Highly touted legal writing expert Brian Garner, in his book The Winning Brief (3rd ed. 2014), features a brief that Bridges authored and introduces it with these comments: “How good is this brief? Let’s just say that many experienced appellate lawyers have told me they consider it to be the best they’ve ever seen: a beautiful marriage of rhetorical skill, thorough research, and humane lawyering.” But you can judge that for yourself. The brief is here.