Mary-Olga Lovett

Practice Areas

Trial Practice; Litigation Consulting.

Mary-Olga “Mo” Lovett has been a trial lawyer for more than 30 years. In that time, she has taken dozens of cases to trial, involving a wide variety of complex legal issues, over 50 with more than $100 billion at stake. And she’s just getting started.

A proven first-chair trial lawyer, Mo has been a fierce advocate for a wide range of national and global clients in bet-the-company litigation. When reputations are on the line or billions of dollars are at stake, clients have turned to Mo to spearhead the litigation, knowing that she has the experience and tenacity to take even the most complex cases to verdict. Mo is a strategic thinker who is often called in to lead other litigation teams in complex cases across a variety of industries. Her recent representations include leading legal teams defending a global energy giant regarding allegations of billions of dollars of environmental damage, defending a global tech firm in a multibillion-dollar Lanham Act case, prosecuting trademark claims for Grammy-winning performers and acting as lead trial counsel for the target defendant in a 2,000-plaintiff Texas state court case arising from an explosion in Houston.

Professional Memberships

Admissions: Supreme Court of the United States; Texas; New York; U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit; U.S. District Court for the Central District of California; U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas

Associations: Adjunct Professor, South Texas College of Law, 1997-2002;cChair, South Texas College of Law Annual Gala Underwriting Committee, 2007; Charter Member, Women’s Association of the Eastern District of Texas Bar Association; Elected Member and Senior Life Fellow, American Board of Trial Advocates; Lecturer, South Texas College of Law Continuing Legal Education, 1996-Present; Lecturer, State Bar of Texas Professional Development Program, 2000, 2008; Lecturer, University of Houston Continuing Legal Education Foundation, 1995-2001, 2008; Member, American Bar Association; Member, Association of Women Attorneys; Member, Bar Association of the Federal Fifth Circuit; Member, Board of Directors, South Texas College of Law, 2020-Present; Member, College of the State Bar of Texas; Member, Greater Houston Partnership Executive Women’s Partnership Committee; Member, Greater Houston Partnership Homeland Security Committee; Member, Houston Bar Association; Member, New York City Bar Association Ethics Committee; Member, State Bar of Texas; Senior Life Fellow, Texas Bar Foundation

Personal

Mary-Olga “Mo” Lovett has been a trial lawyer for more than 30 years. In that time, she has taken dozens of cases to trial, involving a wide variety of complex legal issues, over 50 with more than $100 billion at stake.

And she’s just getting started.

A proven first-chair trial lawyer, Mo has been a fierce advocate for a wide range of national and global clients in bet-the-company litigation. When reputations are on the line or billions of dollars are at stake, clients have turned to Mo to spearhead the litigation, knowing that she has the experience and tenacity to take even the most complex cases to verdict. Mo is a strategic thinker who is often called in to lead other litigation teams in complex cases across a variety of industries. Her recent representations include leading legal teams defending a global energy giant regarding allegations of billions of dollars of environmental damage, defending a global tech firm in a multibillion-dollar Lanham Act case, prosecuting trademark claims for Grammy-winning performers and acting as lead trial counsel for the target defendant in a 2,000-plaintiff Texas state court case arising from an explosion in Houston.

A tech-industry general counsel offers this: “As unstoppable and ferocious as Mary-Olga Lovett is in a courtroom, what truly separates her above the rest is the love, loyalty, empathy, and attention to detail she showers on her clients at every stage of a complex dispute.

Before opening Mo Lovett Law, Mo was a partner at global law firm King & Spalding. She moved to King & Spalding after 18 years at Greenberg Traurig, where she was the senior vice president and ranking woman in a firm of 2,650 lawyers with 5,000 employees in 47 offices around the world. The American Lawyer described her move to King & Spalding as “one of the top 25 lateral moves of the year.” She is excited to bring her big-firm knowledge into her own firm for an unsurpassed level of personalized client service.

Mo is licensed in Texas and New York, and her cases involve a wide variety of complex legal issues, including patent infringement, trademark infringement, theft of trade secrets, commercial disputes, class actions, employment litigation and product liability matters all over the country, in both state and federal courts. She has:

-Represented the music group Lady A (formerly known as “Lady Antebellum”) in the fight for its name.

-Represented a major bank accused of discriminating against Black customers nationwide.

-Successfully defended a Fortune 10 software company in a $43 billion trademark infringement matter.

-Successfully defended a $454 million hedge fund in New York State Court.

Served as lead trial counsel for a major oil company in a case with tens of billions in exposure in which the client was being sued by the state of Louisiana and 42 of its parishes for “shrinking the state.”

-Successfully represented R.J. Reynolds against the state of Texas in a 2019-2021 case in the Eastern District of Texas that was a blatant attempt by the state to “retrade” the landmark 1998 Texas Tobacco Settlement Agreement.

-Served as lead counsel in more than 70 patent cases in the Eastern District of Texas and has successfully tried many patent cases there on both sides of the docket, beginning in 2010.

-From 2019 to 2023, represented Mattel, Inc. and Fisher-Price, Inc. as co-lead counsel in cases involving infant deaths allegedly related to the Rock ‘n’ Play Sleeper.

In addition to her trial work, Mo is also passionate about helping individuals. She has spent much of her career working to place women and diverse lawyers in first-chair roles, particularly in high-profile cases, and building diverse teams to litigate cases she handled. In 2020, Mo was named a “Top Mentor” by Texas Lawyer, and that same year, the Houston Chronicle called her “the Houston attorney pushing to put more women in the courtroom.”

One mentee shared these words: “Mo is one of the greatest attorneys I’ve ever known, but more importantly, she’s one of the greatest people I’ve ever known. She is a fiercely dedicated advocate whose clients are in the absolute best of hands. Mo has shaped so many legal careers, but also lives, including mine. I will be forever grateful for her role in making me a better lawyer and a better judge.”

Mo is honored to be ranked by the Chambers USA Guide as a Band 1 trial lawyer. She has been listed for multiple years as one of the Top 100 Attorneys in Houston and one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in Texas by Super Lawyers/Texas Monthly. Mo has also been recognized as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Texas, and she received the “Best in Patent” award from Euromoney’s Women in Business Law Expert Guide in 2017. She is a 17-year member and Senior Life Fellow of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the qualifications for which include a minimum of 20 first-chair jury trials to verdict and peer election. Mo has also been listed in The Legal 500 for multiple years and was recognized in the 2025 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America guide for four separate categories: IP (Patent and Trademark), Commercial Litigation, Product Liability and Class Actions.

A first-generation American on her mother’s side and a sixth-generation Texan on her father’s, Mo is proud to be the first lawyer in her family. She received her B.A. from Stephen F. Austin State University (’90, political science) and her J.D. from South Texas College of Law (now South Texas College of Law Houston).

While at South Texas College of Law, Mo became the first person ever to hold the title of Champion at both the National Moot Court Competition (New York City Bar Association) (’93-’94) and the ABA’s National Appellate Advocacy Competition (’93). 

As the 2021 recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award, Mo recognizes her alma mater as the place where her dreams as a young law student were nurtured and developed, and she credits the skills she developed there with making her the trial lawyer she is today.

Education

Awards