Steven Stodghill is pictured amongst his vast collection of Batman memorabilia, including this full-size mannequin from Germany, at his Dallas home, June 15, 2026. Stodghill, a commercial litigator and Texas Public Safety Commissioner, has the largest collection of the Caped Crusader in the Southwest — including a life-size Batman suit made of Kevlar (not pictured) that was custom-designed by DC Comics — modeled after the suit from The Dark Knight and given to him by his wife.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
Steve Stodghill — aka Dallas’ “billionaires’ lawyer” — is having the time of his life at 65.
He and Tom Melsheimer, his 65-year-old courtroom alter ego for 33 years, just launched a mission to build out the Dallas stronghold for Atlanta-based multinational giant, King & Spalding LLP.
Their move with 40 fellow partners and associates in tow is their fourth mass exodus — this time mostly from the Uptown offices of international giant Winston & Strawn.
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The opportunity was just too sweet to pass up, Stodghill said in a recent interview at his sprawling estate in Preston Hollow.
“It’s safe to say that Dallas, from a legal market standpoint, is the hottest market in the nation. Smart folks run these big international law firms, and they figure out where the most fertile grounds are for expansions,” Stodghill said. “That’s why they hired us. I’m the business development guy, and Tom’s the trial assassin.”
David Balser, the King & Spalding executive in Atlanta who orchestrated the talent heist, said Stodghill is the perfect tie into the legal community. “That’s far and away the most important piece of this whole puzzle for us.”
Bills $38.25 a minute
As a commercial litigator, Stodghill specializes in high-stakes, noncriminal cases such as breach of contract, partnership disputes, intellectual property theft and fraud.
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His rarefied clients — deep-pocket corporations, sports teams, star players and really, really rich people — currently fork out $2,295 an hour for his legal strategy. Last year, Stodghill says he personally billed about 2,400 hours for a cool $5.5 million.
“I’m not a billionaire, but I’ve represented 25 billionaires and Fortune 100 corporations over the years,” Stodghill said.
He spends his money on things most dear: family and friends, museum-quality fine art and historical artifacts, philanthropic efforts, Republican causes, and independent film production. He even makes occasional cameo movie appearances.
Steven Stodghill’s vast collection of Batman memorabilia is pictured at his Dallas home, June 15, 2026. Stodghill, a commercial litigator and Texas Public Safety Commissioner, has the largest collection of the Caped Crusader in the Southwest.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
Travel is a biggie. Stodghill has traveled to 95 countries on all seven continents with plans to hit the 100-country milestone in the next year.
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He and his wife, Anne, and their 18-year-old son, Dash — after American writer Dashiell Hammett — live in a 14,000-square-foot, gated mansion on nearly two acres.
But Batman is Stodghill’s ultimate indulgence.
He owns the nation’s largest Caped Crusader collection — more than 10,000 items, from comic books to a life-size Kevlar Batman suit like the one in The Dark Knight that Anne had made for him 15 years ago when they moved into their mansion.
“What do you get a guy who has everything, right?” Anne said. “I won Christmas that year.”
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Even his billionaire buddy, Mark Cuban — who is still a client — is awestruck. “The best thing is walking into his office and seeing all the Batman collectibles, lol,” he said in a text. “Just an unexplainable feeling. You have to see it to believe it.”
Lasting relationships
Stodghill has many names: Steve professionally, Stodg to his friends, Stodgy to Anne, Pops to Dash. His 91-year-old mother, Patsy, who lives in Lakewood, is the only person who calls him Steven.
Billionaire Todd Wagner, Cuban’s business partner, has been Stodghill’s constant best friend for 40 years.
“I’ve known Stodg since I was 25 years old, and we were newbie lawyers right out of law school,” Wagner, 65, said in an interview from his home in Tampa. “Both of our lives have had a lot of interesting twists and turns.”
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They were the best men at each other’s weddings. Their families recently traveled to Australia and New Zealand for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings tour.
“He’s upbeat. He’s got charisma and personality,” Wagner said. “He’s just someone I really like to be around, and that’s probably the highest compliment I can give because, look, all of us are jealous of our time.”
Accidental millionaire
Wagner and Cuban put Stodghill on his path to personal riches.
In 1994, Stodghill placed what he thought was a $15,000 sucker’s bet on this fad called the internet — a stretch for him since his capital was tied up launching his own firm with Mike Lynn and Melsheimer.
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Five years later, Wagner and Cuban sold their not-so-faddish company to Yahoo for a reported $5.7 billion. Stodghill’s unexpected windfall was “in the ballpark” of $20 million.
“Stodg is a great guy and a winner,” Cuban said. “He does so much for so many people. He is smart. And he does a great job. You always want him on your side.”
“So both of them are billionaires, and I’m still practicing law,” Stodghill laughed.
Dallas filmmaker Johnathan Brownlee, who doesn’t have the same string series of zeros in his net worth, considers Stodghill one of his closest friends and describes him this way: “Stodg reads more than anyone I know, watches more films than I can count. He’s a collector of people and is immensely generous.
“He’s the guy you want by your side when you go to battle, because you sure as hell don’t want him on the other side.”
Lockstep partners
Stodghill and Melsheimer have been in the legal trenches together since they were in law school at the University of Texas. Stodghill was a year behind because he took a gap year as a legislative aide in Washington, D.C., for Rockwall’s Ralph Hall, the U.S. Representative for Texas’s 4th congressional district and a Democrat at the time.
In 1987, when they joined the big Dallas firm, Akin Gump, Melsheimer predicted they would be partners of their own firm someday. They’ve been in tandem for 33 years.
Their unshakable bond came in 1993, when they formed their law firm with Mike Lynn and had to fend for themselves, Melsheimer said. “Steve and I used to joke that we didn’t want to come in every day and say, ‘Hey, have you finished the crossword or solved the Jumble today? ’ So we got out and hustled.
Having that bond with someone when you’re trying to meet payroll is something that’s hard to match.”
Anne’s wish list
Early in her career as an employment lawyer, Anne wrote down what she hoped for in a life partner.
“I wanted someone who was as comfortable riding on a horse as he was in black tie at the opera,” she recalled. “After Steve and I had been together for a couple of years, I ran across the list again and thought, ‘Well, I’ll be damned, this pretty much describes Steve Stodghill.’ ”
What’s it like to be his wife?
“He makes me laugh every day,” said Anne. “There’s always something interesting going on. He always has a story.”
“His obsessive need to collect things,” Anne said, sitting on the main marble staircase, surveying her surroundings. “While there’s an infinite universe of things to collect, the amount of wallspace we have is finite. Sometimes the physics doesn’t work out.”
She has her limits. There won’t be a Batmobile.
“It would just be one more thing to take care of and where would we park it?” she said. “Every time one comes on the market, multiple people ask, ‘Aren’t y’all gonna get this for Steve? ’ And I’m like, ‘No. He doesn’t need a Batmobile.’ ”
He’s not so sure about that.
Shedding 150 pounds
Stodghill is half the man he was six years ago — literally.
His weight ballooned to 325 in 2020. He’d resisted the repeated pleading of his internist, Dean Dimmitt at Baylor University Medical Center, to get gastric bypass surgery.
“I was about to turn 60, and he said, ‘Stodg, how many morbidly obese guys do you see walking around Dallas, Texas in their 80s?’ ”
That got his attention. After the surgery, it took him about a year to shed the weight. Today, the 6-footer scales in daily at 170-ish.
Anne Stodghill, Steve Stodghill at the Black-tie gala celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Neiman Marcus NorthPark and NorthPark Center Oct. 28, 2015.
Owen Kolasinski/BFA.com
“Losing weight was like a silver bullet that cured all my ailments,” Stodghill said. “I log two miles on a treadmill at a level 15 incline every single day. My health is probably better now at age 65 than I was in my 40s because of exercise and eating better.”
“Steve’s one of the healthier people that I know,” Wagner said. “He’s done almost a 180-turn in the last decade. But here’s the thing. We loved him when Steve was heavier, and we love him now, right? He’s the same Steve.”
Republican allies
Stodghill and Gov. Greg Abbott have been trusted friends for decades.
Abbott, who was a Texas Supreme Court justice 25 years ago, officiated the couple’s wedding attended by 650 guests in the Barrel Vault of the Dallas Museum of Art.
Anne jokes that the spoils from Broadcast.com paid for their over-the-top wedding.
Thanks to Abbott’s back-to-back appointments, Stodghill is in his second six-year term as Texas Public Safety Commissioner, overseeing the state’s largest law enforcement and safety agency of 13,000 employees.
It’s a position Stodghill takes quite seriously.
Two days after the Camp Mystic disaster a year ago, Stodghill was part of the official rescue and recovery team, surveying damage by car and helicopter.
He’s also involved with border security with secret-level clearance from Homeland Security.
The Stodghills host events and parties up to four times a week: meet-and-greets with celebrities, fundraisers for charities, gatherings for Purple Heart vets, recruits for his University of Texas Delta Tau Delta fraternity, family weddings, a black-tie dinner for their 25th anniversary and Republican fundraisers.
Geoff Harper, his close associate for 33 years, says the only events he avoids are those Republican arm-twisters. “My wife would leave me over that.”
A bargain mansion
Stodghill bought his family’s two-story mansion and grounds 15 years ago for $4.5 million with a 1.5% interest mortgage. It had been vacant for two and a half years after a speculative builder went belly up in 2008.
“I was 51 and bought the house just before residential real estate rebounded,” he said. “The builder’s timing was horrible. My timing was absolutely as perfect as it could get.”
Stodghill figures he could probably get nearly three times that if he put it on the market today — which he has no intention of doing. He’d have to get a warehouse.
An art deco French bed made in the 1920’s and a painting by artist John Alexander (left) are pictured with other pieces in Steven Stodghill’s Dallas home, June 15, 2026. Stodghill, a commercial litigator and Texas Public Safety Commissioner, is a collector of art and movies. He also has the largest collection of the Batman in the Southwest.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
Oddly enough, the grand abode with themed rooms and a 28-seat movie theater actually feels like a place where a real family lives.
Roggi, their 11-year-old, giant Samoyed fur ball, rules the manor — fittingly named after the legendary Viking king Ragnar Lothbrok.
Every wall features museum-quality original paintings and photographs including an iconic Mao silkscreen by renowned pop artist Andy Warhol and David Yarrow’s most famous photograph, The Wolf of Main Street.
His office is filled with photos of him with and star-studded celebrities like George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood and Robert DeNiro.
Real-deal historical artifacts include his favorite, Doc Holliday’s black coat with a grazed bullet hole from the OK Corral shootout in Tombstone, Ariz. in 1881. The coat is incredibly small. Holliday, who suffered from tuberculosis, weighed only 130 pounds.
Stodghill is also particularly fond of a Davy Crockett Bowie knife, George Custer’s travel desk and the megaphone that Wild Buffalo Bill used to introduce world-famous sharpshooter Annie Oakley.
Batman hero worship
But nothing is as dear to his collector’s heart as the Caped Crusader.
This idiosyncrasy isn’t as idiotic as it might appear.
As a boy, Stodghill was diagnosed with Legg-Calvé-Perthes, a rare medical disease that required an operation when he was 3. He was immobilized at home in a leg cast for six months.
“My dad always read comic books growing up, and so he got me subscriptions to all the DC comics to read every day,” Stodghill recalled as he gave a tour of his Batman Cave. “I always liked Batman best because he was the superhero who had no superpowers. He had to rely on his own smarts, work ethic and creativity. Not only were all the supervillains terrified of him because he could beat any of them, but all the superheroes were terrified of him for the same reason.
That easily translates into being an attorney, he said. “The equalizer in the practice of law or really any profession is work ethic. It’s not just pure, innate talent. You don’t have a lot of Perry Mason moments where someone has an epiphany and finds the answer.
“The vast majority of problems can be solved if you figure out the right strategic path and the tactics that can get you to that goal.”
Wagner said his best bro fits the Caped Crusader’s part.
“Batman is a multi-layered character in the movies. So is Stodg,” Wagner said. “He’s so social and friends with everyone, but when he needs to go scorched earth for what he does for a living, he’s more than willing to do that.”
Melsheimer puts it this way: “Being photographed with celebrities and a Batman collector doesn’t exactly scream high IQ, you know? But Steve’s intelligence is really his superpower.
“He has the freedom to give the advice that he thinks is right, not the advice that he thinks will please the client. I have seen him be as aggressive as you can imagine when he needs to be.”
Even has a Robin
Harper is his Robin — absolutely no slight intended. “Geoff has been a lawyer for 30 years, super smart, super hard-working and a great litigator,” Stodghilll said. “He’s my go-to guy on most of my big cases.”
Harper embraces the moniker.
“I’ve had many opportunities to go elsewhere each time Steve’s moved, but I’ve always gone with him, including this time,” Harper said. “When I say that every client is a friend of his, they are. That’s the way he’s built his business — trust and the assurance that you’re getting Steve’s and his team’s full attention.”
So why did Stodghill rev up instead of slowing down?
“I’m nowhere close to being done yet,” Stodghill said. “I’m as busy and as engaged as I’ve ever been in my whole career. In fact, I think I’m a lot busier.
“If I weren’t practicing law at full speed, I would have to get a hobby or a Ph.D. or something to stay engaged. I’ve had friends who’ve retired, and then they just kinda faded into the woodwork.”
And improving his golf game isn’t high on his to-do list. He’s been a member of the prestigious Dallas National for 20 years and is happily its worst golfer.
“To play golf, you need to be two of three things — fast, fun or good,” he said. “I’ve got the first two covered.”
What does Anne think about this?
“It has been so much fun to watch him energized and excited again,” she said. “Most people would not be starting the next phase of their career at 65. And he’s just like, ‘OK, let’s do it.’ ”
Meet Steve Stodghill
Age: 65
Born: Dallas
Titles: Partner, King & Spalding LLP; principal and co-founder, Last Rodeo Studios; Texas Public Safety Commissioner
Resides: Preston Hollow
Education: Skyline High School, 1979; bachelor of liberal arts with high honors, University of Texas, 1983; law degree, UT School of Law, 1987
Personal: Married to Anne for 25 years. They have an 18-year-old son, Dash and an 11-year-old, giant Samoyed dog, Roggi.
SOURCE: Steve Stodghill