Mr. Chapple represents individuals, businesses, individual investors, entrepreneurs and founders, banks, and family offices in all variety of commercial disputes. He also represents owners, general contractors, subcontractors, and engineering and architectural firms in construction defect litigation and officers and directors in fiduciary duty litigation. Mr. Chapple has a significant collections practice and has also represented plaintiffs and defendants in defamation litigation. Mr. Chapple also represents creditors in and out of bankruptcy. He has represented non-debtor parties in adversary proceedings, including those alleging preferential and/or fraudulent transfers, as well as Chapter 7 trustees.
Over the course of his career, Mr. Chapple has represented hundreds of injured plaintiff creditors in complex Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases. He works with plaintiff creditors’ counsel to protect their injured clients’ rights and preserve their claims and various avenues for recovery in the fluid, fast-moving world of large corporate reorganizations. Over the past decade, Mr. Chapple has represented individuals, as well as large groups of plaintiff creditors in several of the largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings in the country.
Mr. Chapple has also represented creditors in several high-profile bankruptcy cases. Since 2021, Mr. Chapple has represented nine families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the bankruptcy cases filed by Alex Jones and his related entities. The families’ claims in the bankruptcies total $1.5 billion and arise out of Jones’s claims that the Sandy Hook shooting was a “hoax” and that it was staged by actors. All of Jones’s entities’ bankruptcy cases have been dismissed and his individual case has been converted from a Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation. Mr. Chapple continues to represent the families in their efforts to collect on the $1.5 billion judgment against Jones, which was ruled to be nondischargeable by the bankruptcy court.
Mr. Chapple, along with his colleagues at C&S, also represent former Dominion Voting Systems executive, Eric Coomer, as a creditor in the bankruptcy cases filed by Rudy Giuliani and The Gateway Pundit. Giuliani and The Gateway Pundit are two of several defendants the Firm has filed suit against on behalf of Dr. Coomer relating to false claims that he rigged the 2020 presidential election. Both Giuliani’s and The Gateway Pundit’s bankruptcy cases have been dismissed, and the Firm and its attorneys continue to prosecute Dr. Coomer’s defamation claims against them, as well as several other defendants.
Mr. Chapple received his B.A. in history from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998, and worked as a legislative assistant in the capitol office of a state senator during his time as an undergrad. He graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 2002. While in law school, Mr. Chapple worked for the Texas Senate Natural Resources Committee as a legislative analyst. He also served as a research assistant for the “Legislative Process and Procedures” class at the law school during his third year.
Mr. Chapple began practicing law in 2002 in the bankruptcy/creditors’ rights section of Thompson & Knight LLP’s Houston office. Subsequently, he moved back to Austin and joined a bankruptcy boutique in 2004, where his practice focused on commercial litigation and bankruptcy, representing both creditors and debtors in complex Chapter 11 cases. He joined Cain & Skarnulis in 2010 and, along with his partners, has worked to grow the firm from four to nearly fifteen lawyers.
Mr. Chapple is a life fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation and has been named a “Rising Star” and a “Super Lawyer” by Law and Politics and Texas Monthly magazines multiple times. He has co-authored several articles relating to various bankruptcy and litigation matters. Mr. Chapple was invited to become a Barrister member of the Larry E. Kelly Bankruptcy American Inn of Court in late Fall 2024, an association of lawyers, judges, and other legal professionals from all levels and backgrounds who share a passion for professional excellence.
Mr. Chapple is licensed to practice before all courts in the state of Texas, as well as the United States District and Bankruptcy Courts in the Northern, Southern, and Western Districts of Texas, as well as Colorado. He is admitted to practice before the United States Bankruptcy Courts in the Eastern and Western Districts of Louisiana, as well as the Southern District of New York. He is also admitted to practice by special admission in various other federal and bankruptcy courts throughout the country.
