Leigh Gonnet, Dallas Criminal Attorney

Leigh A. Gonnet is a criminal defense attorney in the Dallas office of Dunham & Jones who handles the firm's Administrative License Revocation (ALR) hearings, the driver's license suspension hearings that follow many DWI arrests, for Dallas and the surrounding cities. She also travels to courts in several counties, including Dallas, Ellis, and Navarro, to ask that clients be granted occupational licenses so they can keep driving during a suspension imposed by the Texas Department of Public Safety. She has handled more than 1,000 cases over her career.

Ms. Gonnet was born in Austin and grew up in Mesquite. She graduated from the University of Texas, majoring in German and French with the intent of becoming a foreign language teacher, and then graduated with honors from Texas Wesleyan School of Law in 1995. As a visiting student at the University of Texas School of Law in 1992, she wrote the chapter on ALR hearings that was published in the U.T. Criminal Defense Manual.

Licensed in Texas in 1996, Ms. Gonnet practiced criminal defense in Austin, handling DWI and other cases and trying jury trials as first chair and second chair in Travis County, before moving to Dallas in 2024 to join Dunham & Jones. She has completed a field sobriety testing workshop, and the Austin Criminal Defense Lawyers Association recognized her with a plaque for her regular attendance at its continuing legal education programs.

In an ALR hearing, Ms. Gonnet looks for grounds to challenge the reasonable suspicion for the traffic stop, studies how the arresting officer's report describes the field sobriety tests and whether proper instructions were given, and prepares questions for subpoenaed witnesses, objections, and final arguments. When it is useful, she requests the officer's disciplinary history from the department. She does criminal defense work to challenge unfairness and injustice and to defend clients from overzealous police and prosecutors, because an arrest can cost a person a day of work, a job, a driver's license, and ultimately housing.

She is married to a family law attorney, has two cats, and loves to travel.

Leigh A. Gonnet
Criminal Defense Attorney - Dunham & Jones
Texas Wesleyan School of Law | University of Texas
Author, ALR Chapter, U.T. Criminal Defense Manual

Leigh A. Gonnet, Attorney at Law