Caryn Papantonakis

Caryn Papantonakis has spent more than twenty years doing one thing: representing plaintiffs against pharmaceutical companies, medical device makers, and insurers. Among Dallas-area injury lawyers, few can claim her depth in mass tort litigation — the large-scale cases where thousands of people harmed by the same drug or device pursue justice together. Her practice at Freese & Goss also reaches asbestos claims and first-party insurance bad faith cases, where an insurer refuses to honor its own policy.

Her results are measured in scale. Papantonakis has negotiated settlements worth millions of dollars on behalf of thousands of clients, and she has handled every phase of litigation herself — from client intake and discovery through trial. Along the way she has taken hundreds of depositions of plaintiffs and expert witnesses, briefed and argued motions in both federal and state courts, and participated in multiple trials. Courts overseeing major litigation have repeatedly placed her in leadership, appointing her to several Plaintiffs Steering Committees, the groups of attorneys who direct strategy in mass tort cases.

Her peers have taken notice: she was named a Texas Super Lawyer every year from 2017 through 2024, and she is a frequent speaker in the legal community. She is licensed in both Texas and Oklahoma and admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. She belongs to the American Association for Justice, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and the Houston Bar Association, and she is a founding board member of Texas Women Rainmakers, a nonprofit that advances women in the legal profession through education, mentorship, and networking.

Papantonakis is best suited for people injured by a prescription drug, a defective medical device, or asbestos exposure — and for policyholders whose insurance company has acted in bad faith. Clients whose cases fold into national mass tort litigation benefit most from her steering-committee experience. Freese & Goss provides free consultations, and injury clients owe nothing unless the firm recovers for them.