In-house lawyers at Trinity Industries Inc. worked closely with Trinity's outside counsel to overturn a more than $663 million False Claims Act judgment against the Dallas-based company after it was accused of defrauding the government over its highway guardrail system.

Trinity is a diversified industrial company that owns businesses providing products and services to the energy, chemical, agriculture, transportation and construction sectors. Sarah Teachout, a Trinity vice president and the deputy general counsel, said the company has about a dozen lawyers in its legal department.

The company had been accused of fraud for failing to disclose to regulators that it had made changes in its guardrails that critics argued made them more dangerous when cars hit them at certain angles. Joshua Harman, a competitor, had sued Trinity on behalf of the government under the qui tam provisions of the FCA. The suit, which Harman filed in 2012, was tried in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall.