Dallas hires Jeff Tillotson at half rate to fight Paxton gun cases

Dallas pays – Dallas is paying acclaimed trial lawyer Jeff Tillotson about $895 an hour—roughly half his typical $2,000 rate—as he helps defend the city in three firearms lawsuits brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Tillotson says the fight is about public rights

For Dallas, the fight over guns in public spaces isn’t happening in a courtroom somewhere down the road. It’s happening right now—inside a set of lawsuits that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office has filed over whether a city can limit legally carried handguns at events held on government property that’s leased to private organizers.

And as the legal stakes rose, Dallas turned to a specific kind of lawyer: Jeff Tillotson, an established Texas trial attorney and a Democrat-linked donor who is charging the city about half of what he typically bills.

Paxton, a Republican and three-term attorney general, is pushing to expand where Texans may carry. In Paxton’s cases. the issue centers on leased government property for private events: can the entity that leases the space deny access to patrons legally carrying guns. or does the city have to allow them because it can’t delegate authority to a third party?.

Dallas has been getting favorable results so far across a trio of lawsuits filed by Paxton’s office.

In an interview, Tillotson said his typical hourly rate is about $2,000. But a contract reviewed through public records shows that in one of the cases he’s charging Dallas $895 per hour.

Tillotson said, “They have many, many fine lawyers in the city’s office so the fact they’d give me the opportunity to work on this is an honor.”

Dallas declined to release invoice statements from Tillotson’s firm. Tillotson Patton. showing how much it’s spending in legal fees to defend the gun restrictions. The city is paying directly for one case. while for the other two it could recoup expenses from private organizations whose firearms bans drew Paxton’s suits.

The outcome won’t just stay in Dallas. The legal fight is playing out inside a deeply-red state where the legislature has passed some of the most firearms-friendly laws in the country.

In Texas. people can carry a handgun openly in libraries. recreation centers. the Texas State Capitol. and government buildings—except when a meeting is happening. Paxton’s argument is that Dallas must also allow handgun carriers into public spaces leased by a private entity. because the city cannot grant third parties the power to ban guns if that third party lacks the authority itself.

At the heart of it is a question that has become increasingly urgent as gun rights debates collide with event rules and public access. Tillotson framed his decision to take the cases around safety and the city’s obligations.

He said he didn’t take the work because of political differences with Paxton. adding that he supports limits on guns in public places for safety reasons. “It could be Ken Paxton, it could be Ken from Barbie,” Tillotson said. “This is about the city’s rights and obligations, and I think we’re 100% right on it.”.

The contract terms are one part of the story. Another part is how the courts—and the timing of rulings—could reshape what private event operators can enforce when they’re holding activities on land leased from the government.

The question has come up most prominently in a case involving the State Fair of Texas.

The State Fair is a nearly month-long annual event held on 277 acres the city leases to a private nonprofit that wants to exclude firearms. Last summer, a trial court dismissed Paxton’s suit in a way that allowed the fair to enforce the ban.

A decision is pending from the statewide appeals court. The case is likely to end up at the Texas Supreme Court, which appears ready to weigh not only gun restrictions generally but the fair’s ban specifically.

Two years ago, the justices said they lacked enough information to resolve Paxton’s challenge to the ban. Justice Jimmy Blacklock wrote that it was “a question on which both law-abiding handgun owners and the operators of the State Fair deserve a clear answer.”

More recently, Justice James Sullivan discussed gun restrictions in a case not directly tied to Paxton’s fight against Dallas. In a May 15 concurring opinion about the gun ownership rights of persons subject to an order of protection. Sullivan wrote that it’s been about a century since the court explained what protections state and federal law give to those seeking to keep and bear arms. Texans, he wrote, “shouldn’t have to endure another hundred years of silence from this court.”.

Paxton’s other two lawsuits—also involving private gun bans at Dallas performing arts venues—are still alive after Tillotson helped fend off the state’s bids for pretrial wins this spring. Both cases remain pending at the trial court.

Paxton did not respond to a request for comment about the litigation.

His office has often relied on outside help in complex matters, paying private lawyers up to $3,780 an hour if they secure monetary settlements for the state. Yet in these cases, the attorney general’s office is facing Tillotson with its own legal team.

Private plaintiffs who joined Paxton in the State Fair lawsuit have separate counsel. Tony McDonald accused the city and the fair of a “shell game, trying to distract and hide each other’s responsibility for their violation of Texans’ right to carry.”

Tillotson is not new to major disputes.

A Texas native who attended high school in Dallas. he has spent four decades practicing law and has been connected to high-profile cases and clients. He sued cyclist Lance Armstrong to claw back millions in performance bonuses on behalf of a promotion company after Armstrong was caught doping. He won a defamation case for George Michael against a Beverly Hills police officer who said the singer mocked him in the 1998 hit “Outside.” He brought antitrust claims against Google as counsel for Match Group.

Tillotson also represents Fermi co-founder Toby Neugebauer in an ongoing governance fight over its massive artificial intelligence data center in the Texas Panhandle.

Soon after Paxton filed the first of the gun lawsuits. Tillotson’s firm secured more work from Dallas in a separate matter involving a $3 billion shortfall in the city’s police and firefighter’s pension fund. That case settled late last year, and the firm billed a total of $568,000, records show. Tillotson billed the city $950 an hour.

Dallas’ legal department declined to comment about the cases or its use of Tillotson as counsel.

James Harris. a Holland & Knight lawyer who represents the State Fair in the Paxton suit and who encouraged the city to hire Tillotson. said: “He’s a very authentic. believable guy in the courtroom.” Harris added that Tillotson “likes to try cases” and does them “all over the country. ” adding that he is “very good at it.”.

The courtroom fight continues under the formal case captions: Texas v. Tolbert, Tex. App., 15th Dist., No. 15-25-00122-cv; Texas v. Dallas, Tex. Dist. Ct., No. D-1-GN-25-002553; and Texas v. Dallas, Tex. Dist. Ct., No. D-1-GN-25-002594.

For Dallas, the discount is only one detail in a larger contest over who controls access to firearms at events on leased government property. But it lands in a moment when every ruling could carry consequences far beyond any single venue.

Dallas Jeff Tillotson Ken Paxton firearms lawsuits Texas State Fair gun ban leased government property Texas Supreme Court Holland & Knight Tillotson Patton