Concierge Counsel for Consequential Matters
Concierra Legal
Family Law Appeals.
Premarital and Marital Agreements.
Strategic Counsel.
Concierge Counsel for Consequential Matters.Concierra Legal is the appellate-first family law practice of Michelle May O’Neil. The work centers on the moments where the result has to hold up under review. Focused on family law appeals, the marital agreements that have to survive review, and strategic counsel on matters where the stakes are too high to get it wrong. Same lens, different door. Reverse-engineer how it breaks. Build it so it doesn’t.
Concierra Legal
Michelle May O'Neil, J.D.
5 Cowboys Way, Suite 300
Frisco, Texas 75034
(214) 506-0704
concierge counsel
The Concierra Standard
Concierra is a name built from a single idea: concierge. It is also a deliberate course correction. A law practice, when it grows, tends to grow toward volume — more files, more hands, more distance between the client and the lawyer whose judgment they actually came for. Somewhere in that growth, the concierge relationship that defines great lawyering quietly disappears.Concierra Legal was built to get it back. This is a low-volume, high-touch practice by design. It takes a limited number of appellate matters at a time, accepts them largely by referral, and gives each one the direct attention of the lawyer whose name is on the brief — not a relay of associates. It is selective on purpose, because the alternative is the very thing it was created to leave behind.The work is priced accordingly. Clients who engage Concierra Legal are buying judgment earned over 34 years and 195 appeals, applied personally to their matter. That is what appellate-first family law judgment has earned, and it is the standard the practice is held to.
At a glance
Key Takeaways
Who we serve: Individuals with high-stakes matters that are too important to get it wrong.
What we do: Family law appeals, premarital and marital agreements, and strategic counsel.
Credentials: Board Certified family law, 34 years, 195 appellate matters, 55 Texas Supreme Court matters, 1 US Supreme Court matter
How engagements begin: Review or referral from trial counsel; flat-fee engagements.
Contact: Schedule below or call (214) 506-0704.
Concierge counsel
About Concierra Legal
Concierra Legal is the Texas-based family law appellate focused legal practice of Michelle May O'Neil, a Board Certified family law attorney licensed in Texas since 1992. Thirty-four years experience. 195 appellate matters handled. 55 cases before the Texas Supreme Court. One application for review in the United States Supreme Court. 37+ jury trials.Michelle focuses on three primary practice areas: family law appeals and appellate strategy; premarital and marital agreements; and strategic counsel on high-stakes matters. She is also a thought leader in the emerging areas of Identity law, artificial intelligence (AI) & the practice of law, as well as access to justice in the age of AI. Identity law includes the study of the new fractionalized identity and each person's rights and NIL (name, image, likeness) protection.With artificial intelligence rapidly advancing, she believes practitioners have a duty of competence in the newest technology and must be vigilant to remain the "lawyer standing in the room" when newest technology is implements in the legal space. She is a national level speaker on the intersection of AI and the practice of law.Running underneath both of these is a longer commitment to advancing the efficiency of the law practice through the use of technology. Michelle was among the first family lawyers in the country to build consumer legal technology when she and a partner built one of the first iPhone apps for legal consumers in 2010. This app was designed to help people who couldn't afford full representation understand what divorce would cost them.The questions have changed; the conviction hasn't. Whether the subject is identity, artificial intelligence, or access to justice, the through-line is the same: the tools reshaping the law should widen access to it, not concentrate it further. That conviction is the foundation of her work now in development.She has been counsel of record on several leading modern Texas appellate decisions that have influenced the body of the law such as: Moore v. Moore and In re Ayad.Texas representation; national strategic consulting in coordination with local counsel.
Practice Areas
Areas of Focus
Concierge Counsel for Consequential Matters
Concierra Legal serves clients who have reached the level where legal architecture actually matters. Behind every door, the same strategic lens: 34 years of trial and appellate experience applying appellate-first family law judgment to see the end of the story before the beginning.
Family Law Appeals — When the result has to hold up under review.
Marital Agreement Strategy — Building the foundation.
Strategic Counsel — Defending and coordinating what’s been built.
Family Law Appeals
Most excellent trial lawyers are the first to say the appeal is a different discipline. The record is fixed, the audience has changed, and what wins is no longer the facts of two years’ work, it’s preserved error, standard of review, and whether the issues were framed so a panel can actually rule on them.Michelle May O’Neil is one of the few attorneys in Texas whose practice is concentrated on family law appeals: 195 appellate matters, 55 cases before the Texas Supreme Court, counsel of record on decisions still cited as controlling Texas authority. A good deal of that work comes by referral: she is the lawyer other family lawyers call when a case is headed up on appeal or when they want a second read on a case before it becomes a problem.The appellate practice is conducted statewide mostly remote with electronic filing so where the trial takes place doesn’t change whether she can help.An appellate-first vantage point also sharpens trial strategy, since the issues that win on appeal are the ones built into the record from the start. That perspective makes Michelle a valuable strategic co-counsel on complex matters.Most of her work is based on flat-fee engagements.
Marital Agreement Strategy
Most attorneys draft marital agreements hoping they'll never be tested. Concierra Legal drafts them understanding what the test looks like.Having handled some of the most consequential premarital and marital agreement appeals, Michelle May O'Neil applies an appellate-first judgment point of view to drafting agreements. She knows how they break and aims to build them to stand up to challenges.She has worked both sides, drafting marital agreements for sophisticated clients before the marriage and arguing the appellate cases that determine what those agreements can and cannot do under Texas law. Three of the leading modern Texas appellate decisions on premarital agreements bear her name as counsel of record: In re Ayad, Moore v. Moore, and Kausland v. Volek.The doctrinal questions that decide whether a prenup holds, such as voluntariness in the signing, fair financial disclosure, enforceability of forfeiture clauses (no-contest provisions that penalize a spouse for challenging the agreement), jurisdictional choice-of-law, and the procedural framework for arbitration, aren't abstract. Concierra Legal drafts to that framework.The practice covers premarital agreements, postnuptial agreements, partition and exchange agreements (which convert community property to separate property during marriage), cohabitation agreements, and confidentiality agreements for sensitive personal relationships.Texas drafting; national strategic consulting in coordination with local counsel.
Strategic Counsel
Some matters don't need new counsel, they need a second, strategic mind. Concierra Legal provides strategic counsel on high-stakes matters: appellate-perspective review of a case in progress, pressure-testing the agreements and ownership structures that hold an enterprise together, and identifying the failure points most likely to matter under pressure. Trial counsel keeps the case; the deliverable is appellate-first strategic judgment. The same lens that wins appeals, reverse-engineering how a thing breaks before it does, gets applied wherever the stakes are high enough to warrant it.
Emerging Areas
Identity Law and Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) Rights
Identity law is the emerging field that governs who controls a person’s name, image, likeness, voice, and digital self — and what happens to those rights when they collide with marriage, business, and artificial intelligence. What it covers: publicity and likeness rights, NIL agreements, deepfake and unauthorized AI replication, brand and reputational rights, and the contractual architecture that protects identity assets across business and personal life.Michelle May O’Neil is among the lawyers who have defined this new area of practice.She developed the Identity Stack — a seven-layer model for governing identity across its biological, legal, economic, representational, algorithmic, synthetic, and agentic dimensions — and debuted it at SXSW 2026 in a featured talk on who owns identity in the AI-driven economy. That framework is now part of the curriculum at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and her work has been covered by Texas Lawyer and Mashable.In practice, identity law runs through everything Concierra Legal does. In a marital agreement, it means defining what is separate and what is shared across each layer of identity — social handles, content libraries, brand partnerships, AI likeness rights — long before a divorce tries to divide them. For founders, athletes, creators, and public figures, a growing share of what they own is not real estate or stock; it is identity.O’Neil counsels nationally on how to structure it, protect it, and keep control of it.
Artificial Intelligence & the Practice of Law
Artificial intelligence is reshaping the practice of law faster than the rules governing it can adapt, and the questions it raises are no longer hypothetical. Deepfake evidence and AI-fabricated exhibits are testing how courts authenticate what they see. Hallucinated citations have drawn sanctions and put the duty of candor and the duty of technology competence on the same footing.Lawyers now face questions of how to supervise AI tools, how to communicate with clients about their use, and how to wield AI to widen access to justice rather than deepen the divide.Michelle May O'Neil is a national voice on these questions, speaking, writing, and developing the frameworks that help lawyers and courts think clearly about where law and AI intersect. The work builds on a legal-technology track record that dates to 2010 and continues through her current commentary on ethics, strategy, and the responsible use of AI in legal practice.
Access to Justice in the AI Era
The same forces reshaping the practice of law are reshaping who can reach it. As legal work grows more sophisticated and more expensive, the distance between people with complex needs and people who can afford complex help keeps widening and artificial intelligence will either close that gap or entrench it, depending on who builds the tools and to what end.Michelle May O'Neil has worked this question from the inside for fifteen years, beginning in 2010 as one of the first family lawyers in the country to build an iphone app for consumer litigants in the family law arena. She is now developing and presenting a perspective on how AI can widen access to family justice rather than concentrate it.
biography
About Michelle May O'Neil
Michelle May O’Neil is one of the few Texas attorneys whose practice is built around family law appeals. And she is the one that lawyers do not want on the other side of a case.In 34 years she has handled 195 appellate matters, argued 55 cases before the Texas Supreme Court, and applied to the Supreme Court of the United States for review of a Texas Supreme Court judgment. She has been counsel of record on decisions that still govern how Texas courts treat premarital agreements and how far an alimony or maintenance obligation can be enforced.Using appellate-first family law judgment, Michelle has influenced the foundation of Texas family law with the kind of cases other lawyers cite and the kind they call her to handle.She has been Board Certified in Family Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization for 29 years, recognized in Best Lawyers in America in both appellate law and family law, and named among the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in Texas. Before founding Concierra Legal she built and led a Dallas family law firm for two decades; the appellate record behind her name was earned across that career, one brief and one argument at a time. Hers is the name litigants want on the brief.She is also a national voice on the legal architecture of identity at the intersection of artificial intelligence — a featured speaker at SXSW 2026, with her framework now taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and coverage in Texas Lawyer and Mashable.
frequently asked questions
FAQs
What is Concierra Legal? Concierra Legal is a boutique, appellate-focused family law practice founded by Michelle May O'Neil. The firm handles family law appeals, premarital and marital agreements, and strategic counsel on high-stakes matters, serving other lawyers who need an appellate specialist and individuals whose legal matters carry significant business or personal consequence. Concierra Legal is the trade name of Michelle May O'Neil PLLC and is headquartered in Frisco, Texas.
Who does Michelle May O'Neil represent? Michelle May O'Neil works through two channels. First, she takes referrals from other family lawyers and trial counsel who need an appellate specialist to handle an appeal or to provide a second, appellate-trained read on a case. Second, she represents founders, executives, professional athletes, public figures, and high-net-worth individuals directly on appeals and marital agreements. She accepts a limited number of engagements each year to ensure each client receives principal-level attention.
What makes Michelle May O'Neil authoritative as a family law appellate lawyer? Michelle May O'Neil has 34 years of trial and appellate experience, including 195 appellate matters, 55 cases before the Texas Supreme Court, and an application for review to the United States Supreme Court seeking review of a Texas Supreme Court judgment. She is counsel of record on decisions still cited as controlling Texas authority on premarital agreements and on alimony and spousal-maintenance enforcement. She is Board Certified in Family Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and has been recognized in Best Lawyers in America in both appellate law and family law, named among the Top 50 Women Lawyers in Texas, and selected to the inaugural Thought Leaders 100 in 2026.
What is identity law? Identity law is the emerging legal field governing the protection, ownership, and strategic control of a person's name, image, likeness, voice, and digital representation in an AI-driven economy. It encompasses publicity rights, NIL (name, image, and likeness) agreements, deepfake and unauthorized AI replication, brand and reputational rights, and the contractual architecture protecting these assets across business and personal contexts. Michelle May O'Neil is among the leading practitioners and thought leaders developing this field, with a featured 2026 SXSW talk on the legal architecture of identity in the AI-driven economy. The content of that talk has been incorporated into curriculum at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
What is NIL legal counsel? NIL legal counsel addresses the legal protection, structuring, and enforcement of name, image, and likeness rights, particularly for professional athletes, college athletes, creators, and public-facing executives whose identity assets carry significant economic value. NIL legal work includes contractual risk review, agreement structuring, enforcement of publicity rights, and strategic response to unauthorized commercial use. Michelle May O'Neil and Concierra Legal advise on NIL legal architecture as part of a broader identity law practice.
Does Concierra Legal handle prenups? Yes. Concierra Legal designs prenuptial and postnuptial agreements for founders, professional athletes, executives, and individuals with significant or complex assets, including identity and NIL rights. These agreements are structured to protect enterprise interests, allocate risk clearly, and withstand future challenge. Michelle May O'Neil is the founder of The Prenup Strategist (prenupstrategist.com), a dedicated platform offering prenup education, training programs, and resources for both consumers and practitioners.
What makes a prenup likely to fail in court? Three things: how it was signed, what was disclosed, and how it was drafted. Texas courts can set aside prenups for involuntary execution (duress, fraud, or undue pressure in the signing), for unconscionability without fair financial disclosure, or for ambiguous and internally inconsistent drafting. Most attorneys focus on the third. Michelle May O'Neil has spent the most appellate time on the first two, including counsel of record on Moore v. Moore, the leading modern Texas case on involuntary execution.
Why shouldn't I just use a downloaded prenup form or ChatGPT? Generic templates miss the issues that matter for sophisticated assets: business equity, NIL and identity rights, digital assets, blended family dynamics, executive compensation. They also fail on the basics. In a 2024 Texas Court of Appeals decision, a husband lost his pickup truck and an interest in his house because he used a downloaded form, signed it two days before the wedding, and the appeal turned on a single ambiguous pronoun.
What should a founder's prenup address that a standard prenup wouldn't? A founder's prenup has to address pre-IPO equity, secondary sales, dilution, vesting cliffs, performance equity, lockup periods, spousal access to company information, control of equity in marital assets, treatment of founder shares during a fundraise or acquisition, and how spousal claims interact with investor rights and shareholder agreements. None of this is in a generic form.
What does Concierra Legal's appellate practice involve? Concierra Legal handles family law appeals, taking a case up after trial in the Texas courts of appeals, the Texas Supreme Court, and where warranted, the Supreme Court of the United States. A typical engagement begins with a review of the trial transcript and record and a written assessment of what is worth raising on appeal. Where the appeal goes forward, the work is the briefing, filing, and oral argument that decide it. Michelle May O'Neil has handled 195 appellate matters and 55 cases before the Texas Supreme Court, and is counsel of record on decisions still cited as controlling Texas authority. Appellate engagements are flat-fee, and the practice is conducted statewide, largely remotely.
What is Concierra Legal's strategic counsel service? Strategic counsel is appellate-perspective advice for trial counsel and parties who want a second, appellate-trained read on a high-stakes case, without changing who is running it. The work includes identifying preserved and waived error, framing issues so an appellate court can rule on them, and spotting the vulnerabilities most likely to matter if the case is appealed. Trial counsel keeps the case and the client relationship; the deliverable is appellate judgment, not representation. Where this role involves working alongside the client's existing counsel, engagements are structured to preserve privilege through proper engagement letters and, where appropriate, co-counsel arrangements (recognized legal structures for preserving attorney-client privilege when multiple attorneys work on the same matter).
How are Concierra Legal's engagements structured? Most engagements arrive by referral from trial counsel. The first stage is a focused review of the trial transcript and record with a written assessment of what is worth raising on appeal. If the appeal proceeds, appellate representation follows on a flat-fee basis, so the cost is known before the work begins. Concierra Legal does not take the trial; that is the role of trial counsel.
Where is Concierra Legal located? Concierra Legal maintains its offices at 5 Cowboys Way, Suite 300, Frisco, Texas 75034. The firm operates virtually, serving clients throughout Texas and advising clients located nationally on matters within its legal scope. For matters requiring representation or expertise in jurisdictions outside Texas, Concierra Legal coordinates with appropriately licensed local counsel.
Does Michelle May O'Neil practice outside of Texas? Michelle May O'Neil is licensed to practice law in the State of Texas and provides Texas legal advice to clients located anywhere in the United States. Where matters require advice about or application of another state's law, she coordinates with appropriately licensed local counsel while maintaining strategic continuity across the engagement. Practice before the Supreme Court of the United States is governed by that Court's own bar rather than a single state license, so on a federal question headed to the nation's highest court her appellate work is not confined to Texas.
Did Michelle May O'Neil speak at SXSW? Yes. Michelle May O'Neil delivered a featured talk at SXSW 2026 on the legal architecture of identity in the AI-driven economy. Her presentation addressed how name, image, likeness, and digital representation are emerging as legally protectable assets in an environment of increasing AI-driven replication and commercial exposure. Her SXSW work has been covered by Texas Lawyer and Mashable, and the content of that talk has been incorporated into curriculum at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Does Michelle May O'Neil speak at lawyer conferences? Yes. Michelle May O'Neil is often asked to educate lawyers at continuing legal education conferences on topics including prenuptial and marital property agreement strategy, appellate practice, trial advocacy, and ethics. She recently presented for the Texas Center for Legal Ethics on Ethics and Professionalism in Family Law and Beyond. She also spoke at the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association Rusty Duncan Advanced Criminal Law Conference in June 2026 on Strategic Communication in the Legal Industry in the Age of AI, and presented a workshop at that organization's Women's Caucus Luncheon on reinventing yourself as a lawyer.
What are the risks of using AI in the legal practice? The fast-moving risks are accuracy and candor. AI tools can fabricate citations and facts that look authoritative, and lawyers who file them have drawn court sanctions for failing to verify. This implicates the duty of candor to the court and the duty of competence, now widely understood to include technology competence. Beyond accuracy, lawyers face questions of how to supervise AI tools, how to protect client confidentiality when using them, and how to communicate with clients about their use.
Can AI-generated evidence like deepfakes be used in court? AI deepfaked evidence is already a live problem in our courts. As AI makes it easier to fabricate convincing images, audio, and video, courts are confronting how to authenticate evidence and how to handle claims that real evidence is fake. For family law in particular, where text messages, recordings, and photos often drive the case, the authentication question is becoming central.
engagement
How Engagements Begin.
Concierra Legal is, first and last, an appellate practice. Most engagements arrive by referral from trial counsel — the lawyer who tried the case and wants an appellate specialist to take it up, or to say honestly whether it should go up at all.The first conversation is usually with trial counsel, and sometimes with the client alongside. If the matter looks like a fit, the engagement begins where every honest appeal begins: with the record. The first stage is a focused review of the trial transcript and the relevant documents from the trial court, followed by a written assessment of what is — and is not — worth raising on appeal. That assessment is the product. It tells you whether you have an appeal worth taking, and if so, where its strength actually lies.If the appeal goes forward, the appellate representation is undertaken from there — briefing, filing, and argument, handled statewide and largely remotely. Appellate engagements are flat-fee, so the cost is known before the work begins.Concierra Legal does not take the trial. That is what trial counsel is for. The practice begins where the trial record ends.
appellate-first judgment
The United States Supreme Court.
Most family law appeals end at the courts of appeals or maybe Texas Supreme Court. A rare few don’t. When a Texas family law judgment raises a constitutional question worth taking further, the last court is the Supreme Court of the United States. Michelle May O’Neil is one of the rare family law attorneys who has taken a matter there to the US Supreme Court where she applied for review of a Texas Supreme Court judgment in a custody case.Practice before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is governed by that Court’s own bar, not by any single state license. A petition for certiorari can arise from the high court of any state, which means that for a question headed for the nation’s highest court, Concierra Legal’s appellate work is not confined to Texas.Very few family law practitioners ever operate at that altitude. It is the ceiling of the appellate ladder, and it is on the menu here.
jurisdiction
Texas Licensure and Geographic Scope.
Michelle May O'Neil is licensed to practice law in the State of Texas. Legal advice is provided with respect to Texas law unless otherwise permitted through association with appropriately licensed counsel.Concierra Legal represents clients throughout Texas in matters consistent with the focus of this practice. Where matters require coordination across jurisdictions, the firm works with experienced local counsel to maintain strategic continuity.
contact
Begin an Inquiry.
To request a consultation, please submit the inquiry form below. All consultations are scheduled after review or upon referral by trial counsel.
The information on this website is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Viewing this site, contacting the firm, or submitting an inquiry does not create an attorney client relationship. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.Michelle May O'Neil is licensed to practice law in the State of Texas. Principal place of business 5 Cowboys Way, Suite 300, Frisco, Texas 75034, (214) 506-0704.Copyright Michelle May O'Neil PLLC dba Concierra Legal 2026. All rights reserved.Do not submit confidential information through this form. An attorney client relationship is established only by written agreement.