VerifiedLawFirms editorial: Focus and practice areas — This is an Austin law firm that serves clients across Texas. Its work sits in three areas: criminal defense, family law, and personal injury.
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About Cofer & Connelly, PLLC
Cofer & Connelly, PLLC is a law firm based in Austin, Texas that provides legal services to clients throughout the state. The firm concentrates on three areas: criminal defense, family law, and personal injury. Its criminal defense work covers matters such as DWI, drug crimes, felonies, and sex crimes, while its family law practice includes divorce, child custody, child support, and spousal maintenance. On the personal injury side, the firm handles car accidents, truck accidents, bicycle accidents, and premises liability cases.
The firm is headquartered at 602 W. 11th Street in Austin, near the Texas Capitol, in a building constructed in 1912. It also lists offices in San Marcos, Lubbock, Kerrville, Blanco, and Abilene, with a Georgetown location noted as coming soon. The firm states that its attorneys have more than 200 years of combined experience and have handled more than 300 jury trials, and that several have served as prosecutors and judges in Texas. The team includes partners, associate attorneys, and of counsel.
Editor's Review
VerifiedLawFirms editorial
Focus and practice areas
This is an Austin law firm that serves clients across Texas. Its work sits in three areas: criminal defense, family law, and personal injury. That mix lets a single firm handle several of the hardest problems a person might face, sometimes at the same time.
Criminal defense
On the criminal side, the team takes DWI charges, drug crimes, felonies, and sex crime cases. These are matters where the stakes reach a person's freedom and record. A firm that handles them day to day will know the local courts and the steps a case moves through.
Family law
The family law practice covers divorce, child custody, child support, and spousal maintenance. These cases tend to run on emotion as much as law. Having one team that can take a divorce and the custody and support questions that come with it keeps the work under one roof.
Personal injury
Personal injury work runs to car accidents, truck accidents, bicycle accidents, and premises liability claims. Truck cases in particular can involve company records and insurers who fight hard on fault. The firm groups these claims with its other litigation work rather than treating them as a side line.
The three areas overlap more than they might look. A car crash can raise both an injury claim and a fight over who was at fault. A family breakup can arrive next to a criminal charge. In my opinion, a firm that keeps criminal, family, and injury work together can be a practical choice for a client who does not want to go find a second lawyer mid-crisis.
How the team is built
The firm lists a sizable roster. Twelve attorneys carry the partner title, and ten more work as associate attorneys. Ramey Ko is listed as of counsel. The about page also marks Jacob Loehr in memoriam, which reads as a firm that keeps its own history in view.
The named partners include Rick Cofer and Jeffrey Connelly, whose names the firm carries. The partner group also lists Geoffrey Puryear, Mark Pryor, Lindsay Richards, Jeremy Sylestine, Jaynie Badgett Clements, Garrett Emerson, Jared Horton, Pedro Villalobos, Roland Rivera, and Will Shindler. That is a wide bench for a regional practice, and it means a client often has more than one attorney who could take a given matter.
The firm states that several of its attorneys have served as prosecutors and judges in Texas. That kind of background can matter in criminal and family court, where knowing how the other side and the bench think tends to shape strategy. As a reviewer, I read former-prosecutor and former-judge experience as a real point in a firm's favour, and one worth confirming against each attorney's own page.
Offices across the state
The headquarters sits near the Texas Capitol in downtown Austin, inside a building put up in 1912. The firm keeps its main base there, a short walk from the courts and government offices that fill that part of the city.
Beyond Austin, the firm lists offices in San Marcos, Lubbock, Kerrville, Blanco, and Abilene. A Georgetown location is noted as coming soon. That reach covers central and west Texas, which can help clients who live well outside the capital and would rather not drive hours for a meeting. Court dates still fall where the case is filed, so the office nearest a client is a starting point, not a promise about which county hears the matter.
What the firm's numbers say
The firm points to two figures. It says its attorneys hold more than 200 years of combined experience. It also says the team has handled more than 300 jury trials.
Both numbers come from the firm itself, so they read as the firm's own count rather than an outside audit. Even so, jury trial volume is a fair thing for a criminal and injury practice to put forward. Many cases settle or plead out and never reach a jury. A lawyer who has actually tried cases brings courtroom experience that not every firm can point to, and for a client who may go to trial, that history is a reasonable thing to weigh.
A reviewer's read
What stands out here is range. Three practice areas, a large partner group, and offices in six Texas cities give the firm a broad footprint for a regional practice. A client can bring a criminal charge, a family matter, or an injury claim to the same door.
The site does stay light on individual detail. It names the attorneys and their titles, but the pages reviewed here did not carry full bios, law schools, or bar admission years. Anyone weighing the firm would do well to read each lawyer's own page and ask, in a first call, who exactly would handle the case and how often that person appears in the relevant court.
For someone in central or west Texas facing a criminal charge, a divorce or custody dispute, or an injury after a crash, Cofer & Connelly offers a single firm that covers all three. The trial history it cites, the spread of offices, and the former prosecutors and judges it names give a client plenty to ask about in that first conversation. As a reviewer, I would treat those points as the questions to test, and let the answers decide.
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Aryn James MendozaAssociate Attorney
Brian GullicksonAssociate Attorney
Dania SadiAssociate Attorney
Dania Z. Sadi is a family lawyer at Cofer & Connelly, PLLC in Austin, Texas. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas and her law degree from Texas Tech University School of Law, where she worked as a student attorney in the Family Law and Housing Clinic. She began her legal career at a civil litigation firm focusing on personal injury and insurance litigation, and now focuses her practice on family law.
Practice focus
Family law
Eliza ThomasAssociate Attorney
Elizabeth DugganAssociate Attorney
Elizabeth Duggan earned a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology from Texas A&M University and her JD from St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. During law school she served as Chair of the Board of Advocates and as an Editorial Member for The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice. She is an associate attorney at Cofer & Connelly, PLLC in Austin, Texas, where she handles criminal defense matters, including drug crimes, theft, fraud, and criminal appeals.
Practice focus
Criminal Defense
Criminal Appeals
Drug Crimes
Expungement
Fraud
Gun Crimes
Emma KypurosAssociate Attorney
Garrett EmersonPartner
Garrett Charles Emerson is an attorney at Cofer & Connelly, PLLC, practicing criminal law in Texas. He earned his law degree from St. Mary's University School of Law in 2017. His professional experience includes serving as a Felony Public Defender at the Hill Country Regional Public Defender Office from 2021 to 2023 and as an Assistant District Attorney at the 216th District Attorney's Office from 2019 to 2021. He has also worked as an associate attorney at Goldstein, Goldstein, Hilley & Orr.
Practice focus
Criminal Law
Criminal Defense
Geoffrey PuryearPartner
Geoffrey Puryear is a partner at Cofer & Connelly, PLLC. He graduated from Texas State University in 2004 and earned his Juris Doctor from Texas Tech University School of Law. He previously served as a felony prosecutor and as a Texas felony district judge, and he practices criminal law. His work includes criminal defense matters such as DWI, drug possession, and sex crime cases, as well as representing college students in Title IX administrative hearings.
Practice focus
Criminal Defense
DUI/DWI
Violent Crime
Drug Crime
Sex Crime
White Collar Crime
Jacob LoehrIn Memoriam
Jared HortonPartner
Jared Benton Horton is a criminal defense attorney based in Austin, Texas, practicing at Cofer & Connelly, PLLC. He earned his Juris Doctor from Baylor Law School in 2016. His professional experience includes service with the Nueces County District Attorney. He handles criminal defense matters.
Practice focus
Criminal Defense
Jaynie Badgett ClementsPartner
Jaynie Badgett Clements is a partner at Cofer & Connelly, PLLC in Austin, Texas, where she practices family law. She graduated from St. Mary's University School of Law in 2017 and earned a B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 2013. She began her career as an associate at a family law firm in San Antonio before relocating to Austin in 2020. Her practice focuses on matters including divorce, high-conflict custody disputes, complex property division, and adoption.
Practice focus
Family law
Divorce
Child custody
Adoption
Child support
Spousal support
JCJeffrey ConnellyPartner
Jeffrey Connelly is a founding partner of Cofer & Connelly, PLLC in Austin, Texas, where he leads the firm's civil litigation practice with a focus on family law and personal injury matters. He earned a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of the South in 2008 and a J.D. from Georgia State University College of Law in 2012. He began his legal career as an Assistant District Attorney in the Fulton County District Attorney's Office in Atlanta, serving in the Complex Trial Division, before moving into private practice. In the spring of 2020, he co-founded Cofer & Connelly, PLLC.
Practice focus
Family Law
Personal Injury
Divorce
Jeremy SylestinePartner
Jeremy Sylestine is a partner at Cofer & Connelly, PLLC in Austin, Texas. He earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2004 and holds a B.A. in Italian from the University of Texas at Austin. He began his career as an assistant public defender in the Texas Panhandle, then served as an assistant district attorney at the Travis County District Attorney's Office from 2006 to 2021, where he handled matters including child abuse, domestic violence, homicides, aggravated robberies, and DWI cases. His practice focuses on criminal defense, including violent crimes, sex crimes, DUI and DWI, and drug offenses.
Practice focus
Criminal Defense
Domestic Violence
DUI & DWI
Violent Crime
Sex Crime
Drug Crime
Kevin GarciaAssociate Attorney
Lindsay RichardsPartner
Lindsay Ann Richards earned her Juris Doctor from South Texas College of Law Houston in 2014. She practices criminal defense at Cofer and Connelly in Austin, Texas. Her profile lists criminal defense as her area of practice.
Practice focus
Criminal Defense
Mark PryorPartner
Mark Pryor practices criminal defense law at Cofer & Connelly in Austin, Texas. Before entering law, he worked for about a decade as a journalist and studied journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before earning his law degree from Duke University School of Law. He worked in commercial litigation at a firm in Dallas and then joined the Travis County District Attorney's Office in 2006, where he handled a wide range of criminal cases, served as lead prosecutor on multiple murder cases including a capital murder case, tried numerous felony jury cases, and spent five years working on juvenile criminal matters. He is also the author of a series of mystery novels.
Practice focus
Criminal Defense
Criminal Law
Business Law
Juvenile criminal law
Miguel GutierrezAssociate Attorney
Natalia TsokosAssociate Attorney
Natalia Tsokos earned a degree in social work and continued her education at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She is an attorney at Cofer & Connelly, PLLC in Austin, Texas, where she handles criminal defense matters. She also participates in new client meetings and translates for the firm's Spanish-speaking clients.
Practice focus
Criminal Defense
Expunctions
Administrative license revocations
License eligibility
Pedro VillalobosPartner
RKRamey KoOf Counsel
RCRick CoferPartner
Rick Cofer is a partner at Cofer & Connelly, PLLC in Austin, Texas. He earned a B.A. in Government and History from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004 and his Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law in 2007. Over the course of his career he has served as a judge, felony prosecutor, and criminal defense attorney, and has tried more than 100 cases to a judge or jury. His practice handles criminal defense, juvenile law, DWI, violent crime, and personal injury matters.
Practice focus
Criminal defense
Juvenile law
DUI & DWI
Violent crime
Personal injury
Domestic violence
Roland RiveraPartner
Roland Rivera earned his law degree from The University of Texas School of Law in Austin, where he worked as a student attorney in the school's criminal defense clinic and had an article published in a legal journal. He completed a bachelor's degree in Political Science at Texas Tech University. As a law student, he clerked for criminal defense attorneys in Austin, San Antonio, and Lubbock. His practice focuses on criminal defense, including DWI and drug cases, and he has represented clients in contested hearings and trials in Texas.
Practice focus
Criminal Defense
DUI and DWI
Employment and Labor
Thomas ZapataAssociate Attorney
Will ShindlerPartner
Will Shindler is an attorney in Austin, Texas, and has worked as an associate at CHA Law Group since 2018. They completed their education at the University of Houston in 2017. Their practice focuses on divorce and separation, child custody, and adoption, including relative, step-parent, and second-parent adoptions. They also handle family law matters involving reproductive law and LGBT legal issues.
Practice focus
Divorce and Separation
Child Custody
Adoption
Family
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