Attorney Immunity
Attorney immunity bars claims by non-clients against a lawyer for conduct within the scope of representing a client. It is an immunity from suit rather than a defense to liability, and it turns on the kind of conduct at issue rather than on whether that conduct was wrongful. Texas applies it outside litigation as well as within it.
A lawyer who does a lawyer's job for a client cannot be sued for it by the person on the other side. That is the whole doctrine, and Texas states it more broadly than most states do. The protection does not depend on the lawyer's motive, and it is not lost because the conduct alleged is fraudulent or otherwise wrongful. The question is functional. Was the lawyer discharging duties owed to a client?
The controlling test
Cantey Hanger, LLP v. Byrd, 467 S.W.3d 477 (Tex. 2015), holds that an attorney is immune from civil liability to non-clients for conduct within the scope of representation, even conduct alleged to be fraudulent. The court rejected a fraud exception. What matters is the kind of conduct, not the wrongfulness of a particular instance of it. Filing a document, negotiating a term or advising on a course of action are things lawyers do for clients, and characterizing one instance as improper does not strip the immunity.
Haynes and Boone, LLP v. NFTD, LLC, 631 S.W.3d 65 (Tex. 2021), extended the doctrine beyond litigation to transactional and other non-litigation work, while making clear the conduct must still be lawyerly in kind. Landry's, Inc. v. Animal Legal Defense Fund, 631 S.W.3d 40 (Tex. 2021), marks the outer edge, since publicity conduct that is not the practice of law does not qualify merely because a lawyer performed it. Bethel v. Quilling, Selander, Lownds, Winslett & Moser, P.C., 595 S.W.3d 651 (Tex. 2020), confirms that criminal conduct is not categorically outside the immunity, though conduct that is criminal will often fall outside the scope of representation anyway.
The business court application
In In re Frank Jackson, No. 15-25-00235-CV (Tex. App.—15th Dist. July 14, 2026), the Fifteenth Court conditionally granted mandamus relief to a company's general counsel who had been sued by a third party for tortious interference founded on his advice that the board terminate the chief executive. Chief Justice Brister wrote for the court and Justice Farris dissented. The court held that rendering advice of that sort is the kind of conduct attorneys engage in when discharging professional duties, so immunity applied, and it directed that the order denying dismissal be vacated. The opinion also confirms that no express engagement agreement is needed, because Texas does not require a written agreement for legal representation outside the contingent fee context.
For in-house counsel the decision is useful and narrow. Advice to the board on a personnel decision is lawyering. Running the business is not. That line will keep being litigated, and a general counsel who also holds an operating title should expect the plaintiff to plead around the immunity by attacking the business role.
How it is raised
Because it is an immunity from suit, raise it early, by motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment, with the record confined to what the lawyer did rather than why. Discovery into the lawyer's motives is beside the point under Cantey Hanger, and a defendant who lets the case drift into a motive inquiry has given away the doctrine's main advantage.