Sawtelle Law
Law Office of Gilbert G. Sawtelle IV, PLLC
Attorney · Former Harris County Chief Prosecutor
Gilbert G. Sawtelle IV is the attorney at the Law Office of Gilbert G. Sawtelle IV, PLLC. The office practices as Sawtelle Law. He spent years at the Harris County District Attorney's Office before defending people charged in the same system.
As a felony chief in the trial bureau, he was chief of the 208th and 209th District Courts for more than two years. Those courts carried dockets of about a thousand pending felonies. He supervised two to three prosecutors and tried murder cases as lead counsel. He then spent more than four years as Felony Chief Prosecutor in the Child Fatality Section, working with homicide detectives, hospital child-abuse physicians, and CPS from the investigation through jury trial.
For more than three years in the Mental Health Division he handled felonies involving incompetency and insanity, and he worked in the county's mental-health and drug-addiction courts. He co-authored Mental Health Law for Prosecutors, a book on investigating those cases, competency, sanity, specialty courts, and civil commitments. He has taught that subject statewide, including a TDCAA CLE on mental health defenses and talks at the Texas Forensic Mental Health Conference at Vernon State Hospital and Kerrville State Hospital.
He has tried more than fifty jury trials as lead or supervising attorney. He does not advertise verdicts from his years as a prosecutor. What that career is for, now, is knowing how the State builds a file — and where it does not hold.
The lawyer you hire is the lawyer who handles the matter.
From Gilbert's biography.
Gilbert was born and raised in College Station, Texas, to a family full of Aggies. However, after high school, he decided to forge his own path and attend undergrad at the University of Texas at Austin, where he graduated with a degree in Economics.
After undergrad, Gilbert got his law degree from South Texas College of Law, where he was a member of the Board of Advocates and the nationally recognized trial advocacy and moot court program. He competed as a varsity advocate for the law school in numerous national mock trial and moot court competitions across the country, earning accolades such as Regional Winner of the Thomas Tang Moot Court Competition and Scribes National Best Brief Award Nominee.
During that same time, Gilbert interned at the Harris County District Attorney's Office and the Gilde Law Firm. At the Gilde Law Firm, a civil plaintiff's trial practice, Gilbert worked almost exclusively on the landmark case of Parr v. Aruba Petroleum, Inc., which garnered national media coverage as the first fracking lawsuit that was successful at trial.
After passing the Texas Bar Exam in May of 2013, Gilbert briefly stayed with the Gilde Law Firm as an attorney before going to work for the Harris County District Attorney's Office.
Gilbert spent over 13 years as a prosecutor and handled every type of criminal case, from low-level misdemeanors to high-profile homicides. During his time at the DA's Office, he spent over three years in the Mental Health Division, where he co-authored the book Mental Health Law for Prosecutors. He also handled a large number of violent offenses, including murders, aggravated robberies, arsons, and sexual assaults with competency and sanity issues, and he worked in a number of specialty courts designed to address defendants with mental health diagnoses.
He spent the last six years of his time at the DA's Office as a felony District Court Chief in the Trial Bureau and Child Fatality Section. In total, Gilbert tried over 50 jury trials as either lead trial counsel or as a supervisor. He also provided both local and statewide training to other attorneys and law enforcement agencies on the topics of mental health and child fatality prosecutions.
13+
Years in criminal court
From the Harris County District Attorney's Office to this defense practice.
50+
Jury trials
As lead trial attorney or as a supervising attorney.
