James Madison Ardoin

Jimmy Ardoin is a Houston trial attorney with more than two decades of experience and over 50 jury trials in state and federal courts across the United States. His practice sits at a rare intersection — plaintiff's litigation and criminal defense — giving him a perspective that most trial lawyers never develop. He understands how fraud is built because he has defended it. He knows how to maximize damages because he has spent twenty years dissecting financial evidence in federal courtrooms. That crossover gives his clients a genuine strategic advantage. Today, Jimmy's practice focuses on three areas: personal injury, complex business and commercial litigation, and select white-collar criminal defense at the federal level. In 2025, he secured a $10,000,000 jury verdict for a client whose business partners stole his share of the company — a case Jimmy took over just four weeks before trial. He has also obtained a $1,500,000 trucking settlement, a reversal of all counts and vacation of a 60-year federal sentence on appeal, and multiple federal indictment dismissals in bank fraud and export violation cases. Earlier in his career, Jimmy represented clients in some of the most consequential federal prosecutions in the country, including cases involving international financial institutions and high-profile government investigations. He has appeared in all four federal district courts in Texas and before the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Fourth Circuits. Jimmy is a recurring Texas Super Lawyer in White-Collar Criminal Defense and a National Trial Lawyers Top 100 and Top 40 Under 40 honoree. He earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law and his B.A. in History from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a member of the Houston Bar Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, and the Federal Bar Association.