Legal Guide

What you need to know about William T. Reid IV

William T. Reid, IV is one of the founding members of the Reid Collins & Tsai LLP. He is a true commercial litigator who has handled a wide range of civil and criminal cases before juries and judges for more than two decades. William Reid represents public companies, private businesses, liquidators, SEC receivers, and bankruptcy fiduciaries. William is considered to be one of the best lawyers in Austin, Texas and has the skills and experience to deliver excellent results.

An experienced and skilled commercial litigator, Reid has lots of experience trying and litigating a wide range of complicated financial and commercial cases. A majority of the cases that Reid handles at Reid Collins & Tsai LLP are mainly within the field of professional malpractice, fraud, insolvency litigation, complex financial transactions, and business torts. William has handled countless cases that arise out of cross-border frauds and Ponzi schemes, along with bad-faith insurance actions, professional liability cases, and fiduciary litigation.

Major achievements of William T. Reid, IV;

  • In the 1990s, William Reid worked as an Assistant United States Attorney for three years, where he handled complex corruption and drug prosecutions. During his tenure, he tried 25 cases, where he achieved 24 convictions and prosecuted hundreds of cases every year. After considering private legal practice in the year 2000, Reid has used his experience and knowledge perfectly in the courtroom, where he handles at least one commercial case to trial every year. He has never lost a case since he started private practice in 2000. Over the years, William has obtained countless top-100 trial verdicts and judgments for all his plaintiff clients.
  • One of the notable cases that William T. Reid IV of Reid Collins & Tsai has handled is the trial case against Credit Suisse between 2014 and 2015. After the collapse of Lake Las Vegas, a high-end property development during the financial crisis of 2008, all the 31 funds that financed the project lost about $540 million. However, out of all the 31, only one hedge fund, Highland Capital management, pursued legal action against the Credit Suisse Group AG that handled the appraisals and financing for the entire project. However, Credit Suisse has unswervingly denied responsibility for Highland’s losses.
  • William Reid won the case by trying bench trials and tandem jury for weeks, and he proved that Credit Suisse had fraudulently schemed a real estate development loan of $540 million. They were awarded a judgment of $287.5 million in September 2015. Rein argued his appeal before the Dallas Court of Appeals and by 2018 February, the judgment was affirmed by the Dallas Court of Appeals. Many industry players were amazed when Reid won the case in 2015.

With the assistance of their lawyer William Reid, Highland was able to convince the Texas court that Credit Suisse breached the contract and helped and backed up fraud in the deal, and on appeal, this decision was upheld. As a result, Credit Suisse had a deadline of up to July 2018 to pay $360 million to Highland or appeal to the Supreme Court of Texas.

The victories have heightened the reputation and popularity of Reid Collins & Tsai, a newly-formed Texas law firm. The successful outcome of the case will also encourage other investment funds to consider taking legal action against big banks.


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