Recent data from Lex Machina shows that while Texas federal courts have become a national hotspot for trade secret litigation, the number of lawsuits filed here still aren’t enough to crack the top five.
The Southern District of Texas ranked seventh, and the Northern District of Texas ranked ninth in the number of trade secret disputes filed in federal courts. The Central District of California had the most filings, with the Southern District of New York close on its heels.
Unlike New York and California, noncompete agreements are enforceable in Texas. Legal data analysts hypothesize that may be why Texas, the nation’s second most populous state, lags behind California and New York in the number of trade secrets disputes filed in the state.
When the data is sorted by judge, three Texas jurists were near the top of the rankings for number of trade secret cases. Western District Judge Alan Albright ranked 2nd, Southern District Judge Charles R. Eskridge III ranked 6th and Western District Judge Robert Lee Pitman ranked 9th for the number of trade secret disputes presided over.
According to the report, there is an uptick in trade secret cases nationally, with over 1,500 cases filed in 2025, which is the most recorded since 2016, when the data was first compiled.
Adam Masarek, legal marketing manager with Lex Machina, said that he expects the case filings to increase.
“Not only have these plaintiffs filed these suits and know how to go about it, there’s also been court-ordered damage awards of sizeable amounts in these cases, which incentivize and encourage other players to go after the cases as well,” Masarek said.
A factor that Masarek sees contributing to the increase in trade secrets litigation is nuclear verdicts.
“There is evidence that jury verdicts, especially in certain areas, including trade secrets, are outpacing general economic inflation in terms of their growth in recent years,” Masarek said.
A Northern District of Texas case saw a more than $168 million damages award in June 2024 that was affirmed on appeal in November 2025. And in the Southern District of Texas, more than $76 million in damages was awarded in October 2024, a decision that was affirmed on appeal in January.
Di Rivera, an intellectual property legal data expert with Lex Machina, said trade secret cases are tied into a lot of other practice areas, with employment and patent being the largest ones. Both of those are large practice areas in the Lone Star state.
“Trade secrets are very tied into technology, and the development of that, and a lot of the states that we see on the top are those the hubs,” Rivera said.
She added that because Texas is a market for technology and patents, it is expected to see that continued growth in trade secret litigation.