About Thomas P.
Thomas P. Carnes has spent more than three decades in Texas legal circles, balancing courtroom work and mediated solutions. He trained first as a business student, then as a lawyer, and his resume shows steady movement between firms and his own practices. Colleagues describe someone who kept changing settings until he built a practice that fit his way of working.
Carnes earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of North Texas in 1983 and returned there to complete an MBA in 1988. He then attended the University of Houston Law Center, where he received his Juris Doctor in 1992. The combination of business and law study appears repeatedly in his career choices.
His early legal years were spent in association roles. In 1992 he worked at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP. The following year he was with Seiler Cohn & Stebbins, and in 1995 he joined Locke Liddell & Sapp as an associate. Those positions provided traditional firm experience across a range of matters typical for junior litigators and transactional lawyers of that era.
Carnes moved into private practice in the 2000s. He established his own practice, Thomas P. Carnes, Lawyer, in 2002. In 2004 he became a partner at Carnes Ely, LLC. By 2008 he had returned to solo practice under the name Thomas P. Carnes, Lawyer & Mediator. That transition marked a clear turn toward offering both representation and neutral dispute resolution services from his own platform.
Professionally he participates in organized bar activities. He has been a member of the College of the State Bar of Texas since 1997, a sign of long-term engagement with the state bar. Since 2018 he has also held membership in Collaborative Divorce Texas, which aligns with his role as a mediator. He is authorized to practice in Texas.
As a lawyer and mediator, Carnes combines business training and long-standing firm experience. His practice has moved between traditional representation and mediation work, and he now operates as an owner-practitioner. He handles client matters from his Texas office and offers mediation services as part of his practice. He currently practices through Thomas P. Carnes, Lawyer & Mediator, concentrating on legal representation and mediation services in Texas.
