Guest Contributor

Michael Townes Watson

I live in the West Greenwich Village area of New York City, with my wife, Becky, and our two sons. I was a trial lawyer in Fort Worth, Texas for twenty-eight years, engaged for the greatest part of that career as a plaintiff's medical malpractice lawyer. I no longer practice law. I now spend my days reading and writing about the one thing that I think people still do not fully understand–that they can easily become the victim of an error made by the healthcare system or by an individual in the healthcare system, and that the justice system will not be there for them. If my work can help readers understand that one point, then I believe that I will have accomplished more than I ever could by working on individual cases.

Being a trial lawyer was what I wanted to do when I started law school at the University of Texas School of Law in thirty-three years ago, and my career was enjoyable and challenging. Like many trial lawyers, after initially "paying my dues," I arrived at the point in my career where I had the opportunity to limit my work to what I really enjoyed—working on behalf of the best clients, with legitimate cases and significant injuries. These were always the people who most needed the help.

I never planned to quit trying cases and become a full-time writer. Several things converged over the course of a short period of time that moved me to that decision. First, my six back surgeries over the course of a twenty-year period of time, leaving me unable to sit or stand for the time necessary to try cases. Second, at about the same time, was the decision, of less than 51% of the voters in the state of Texas, implemented by the Tom Delay-bought 2003 Texas legislature, which did away with the justice system for victims of medical error. The third factor was that I became an adjunct professor of law at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, and became more of a student of the law. The final factor that caused me to begin to write was that I saw that most people did not realize what the tort reforms meant that they had voted for in Texas, and that the rest of the people in this country needed to know about the havoc the insurance companies had reeked in Texas, and were trying to reek elsewhere. Thus, my decision to write.

While a trial lawyer in Texas, I had the fortune of being asked to be a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, a national society of lawyers from both plaintiff and defense practices. In other words, the men and women who represent both the injured and those who are defendants in suits brought by the injured. The stated mission of that body is the "preservation of the Seventh Amendment right to trial by jury." I was proud to be asked to participate in that mission, and I was proud to be a member of the Fort Worth, Texas Chapter, the National Chapter, to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Chapter of Abota, and to be the Secretary/Treasurer of the Texas Chapter, known as Tex-Abota. I also was a member and on the Board of Directors of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and served for one term as the President of the Tarrant County Trial Lawyers, a group of lawyers dedicated to the representation of individuals harmed by the practices of business and insurance companies. So, all in all, the developments of my life have been good for me. I hope my writing will also be good for someone else.

Read Archived Posts by Michael Townes Watson

Posted by Guest Contributor at September 5, 2004 06:01 PM