Dane Butswinkas

Dane Hal Butswinkas was born on 9 March 1961 in Virginia Beach to Jan Vernie Shackelford and raised by his mother and stepfather, Joseph T. Butswinkas, a naval officer who adopted him. Growing up in Navy housing in Virginia, he learned discipline and public service from his stepfather, who rose to warrant officer and later worked as an engineer. Two rules on the kitchen wallpaper, no bragging and no bullying, stayed with him for life. Both parents were buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

He graduated summa cum laude from James Madison University in 1983 (debate; baseball), earned an MAIS in public policy from George Mason University in 1986, and received a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1989 with Order of the Coif, Virginia Law Review membership, first place in the William Minor Lile Moot Court Competition, and the Eppa Hunton IV and Stephen Pierre Traynor awards.

Joining Williams & Connolly in 1989, Butswinkas tried more than sixty cases to verdict nationwide in civil and criminal matters. Highlights included the Bear Stearns Cioffi acquittal (2009), an HBO Real Sports defamation defense verdict, AstraZeneca's Nexium antitrust defense in Boston, a Kandahar court-martial acquittal, and other commercial, product-liability, and white-collar trials. He served on the Hiring Committee (1992-2004) and as firm Chair on the Executive Committee, and was elected an American College of Trial Lawyers fellow in 2012.

After representing Elon Musk in securities matters, Butswinkas became Tesla's general counsel in late 2018 while keeping his Williams & Connolly partnership. He returned to the firm after roughly two months in early 2019, later saying the corporate role was not the right fit even though the experience was illuminating. CNBC and other outlets covered the short tenure as part of Tesla's executive turnover under Musk.

In 2025, after an executive order sought to strip Perkins Coie lawyers of clearances, bar government-building access, and cancel contracts, the firm hired Butswinkas as lead counsel. Colleagues said he treated the case as an obligation without hesitation. A U.S. district judge held the order unconstitutional; the government appealed. Contemporaneous reporting and later obituaries cast the matter as a defining late-career stand for the independence of the bar.

In September 2026 Butswinkas represented Meta in New Mexico state court in a trial tied to Facebook user data and Cambridge Analytica. Law.com noted the engagement in its October 2026 death notice. Courtroom View Network offered gavel-to-gavel coverage of the proceeding.

Butswinkas lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He was married to Janine Pierson. He and former wife Megan Rupp are the parents of Joseph Butswinkas and John Bailey Butswinkas. In a 2025 Leadership Matters interview he described himself as a successful introvert in an extroverted profession, mentioned golf and ice hockey for fun, and said his sons were heading into business rather than law.

He often cited Edward Bennett Williams's teaching that the most important characteristic of a lawyer is listening. He framed trial advocacy as translation for jurors, preferred knowing the whole case over hierarchical compartmentalization, and said money is a weak glue for law firms compared with collegiality and professional values. He took pride in representing clients across the political spectrum and in standing up when standing up mattered.

American College of Trial Lawyers fellow (2012); Law360 Top 50 Trial Aces (2015); Benchmark Litigation National Commercial Lawyer of the Year (2016) and Top 100 Trial Lawyers listings; Chambers USA commercial and trial rankings; The Legal 500 leading lawyer recognitions; Lawdragon leading litigator lists; Washingtonian Top Lawyer Hall of Fame (2022); Forbes America's Top Lawyers (2026); Best Lawyers in America listings; BTI Client Service All-Star (2020).

He appeared with Kevin Hodges in a 2018 Forbes Law Council-style interview on Williams & Connolly culture and contest living, and gave an extended December 2025 Leadership Matters interview with Alan Fleischmann covering Navy upbringing, mentorship, Tesla, and the craft of persuasion. His Tesla departure drew CNBC television coverage in February 2019.

Williams & Connolly remembered him as one of the country's most accomplished trial lawyers, a mentor to generations of associates, and a builder of the firm's reputation. Judge Ana C. Reyes, a former firm lawyer, credited him with bringing her to the firm by looking past a shaky interview to courtroom potential. UVA Law, peers such as Kannon Shanmugam, and national legal press marked his death as the loss of a trial ace who still took hard cases.

Butswinkas died on 26 October 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona, of a pulmonary embolism while preparing for trial, according to his family as reported by The Washington Post. He was 65. Williams & Connolly published an in-memoriam notice; Dignity Memorial listed services through A.L. Moore-Grimshaw Mortuaries Bethany Chapel in Phoenix. The National Law Journal, Law360, and other outlets reported the death in late October, with a fuller Washington Post obituary on 5 November 2026.