Bill advocates for people and causes he believes in. Drawing on his experience working for both the regulator and the regulated, Bill represents individuals and businesses as they confront powerful interests: regulated businesses and professionals in disputes with government agencies and landowners in eminent-domain and other property-rights cases. ChambersUSA notes that Bill has a “unique perspective on state regulation, which is respected by all regulating entities in Texas.”

Bill obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied American Government. Bill received his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was an Articles Editor of the Northwestern Law Review. After graduation, Bill clerked for Chief Justice Thomas R. Phillips of the Texas Supreme Court.

Bill entered private practice at Vinson & Elkins, where he worked in the firm’s litigation and regulatory practices, and learned how to zealously advocate for clients by leaving no stone unturned. After his first child was born, Bill moved in-house to serve as Senior Regulatory Counsel for Covad Communications, a broadband internet access provider, where he learned how to digest complex technical and legal information into an understandable format that could be explained to State regulators.

Upon realizing his work travel was interfering with his desire to be a present father, Bill returned to private practice with Jackson Walker, where he had an insurance-regulatory and class-action-litigation practice.

Bill’s career changed forever in 2009 when then–Attorney General Greg Abbott invited him to come “manage and litigate the State’s biggest and most important cases.” Serving as Special Assistant and Senior Counsel to Attorney General Abbott, Bill was the lead counsel for the State of Texas in many significant matters: the historic 26-state challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), Texas’s challenge to the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations, the Gulf States action against BP for the Deepwater Horizon well explosion, Texas’s defense of its air-permitting program against EPA overreach, and lawsuits resulting in hundred-million-dollar verdicts and settlements against big pharma for civil Medicaid fraud.

Bill was next appointed to serve as Deputy Attorney General for Civil Litigation, where he managed over 300 lawyers in 10 divisions. Bill was responsible for initiating, approving, negotiating, and settling investigations for violations of Texas Antitrust, Consumer Protection, and civil Medicaid fraud laws. Bill also represented Texas state agencies in litigation to enforce Texas environmental, health-and-safety, and tax laws. While representing the State of Texas, Bill learned just how difficult it was to face the government in Court, and that (unfortunately) many times the government gets things wrong.

While Bill loved working for the people and the State of Texas, he ultimately returned to private practice to better support his family. Upon leaving the Attorney General’s Office, now–Governor Abbott described Bill as an “expert legal tactician and successful litigator.” A few years later, following his entrepreneurial spirit, Bill achieved a life-long ambition when he opened the doors to his own firm, Cobb & Counsel. After nine years of representing clients in matters involving Texas Government Law, Bill and Chris agreed to combine their firms and talents to serve both landowners and businesses confronting powerful opponents.

Bill appears on the 2015 through 2024 lists of The Best Lawyers in America, a peer-selected honor. Texas Super Lawyers Magazine has named him to its “Super Lawyers” lists for every year but one from 2015 through 2023.

Bill is licensed in Texas and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and District of Columbia Circuits, the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern, Southern, and Western Districts of Texas, several other federal courts across the country, and all state courts in Texas.

Bill values his relationship with his two daughters, Jordan and Caroline, more than anything. Bill is lucky to be married to a woman who shares his values and aspirations, Nikki Cobb, a governmental-affairs expert who works for the Texas Comptroller.