Monday, November 26, 2007

Ne'er-do-well makes good

If readers will forgive an off-topic point of personal privilege, congratulations to my father, Tom Henson, for his recent selection as president-elect of the Texas Association of Defense Counsel (that's civil, not criminal defense attorneys). Reported the Tyler Morning Telegraph:
The TADC is a statewide association of more than 2,000 private practice attorneys specializing in civil defense trial law. Henson, who practices primarily in complex toxic tort and commercial litigation, is admitted to practice in the Southern, Eastern and Northern Federal Districts of Texas, in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and in Texas and U.S. Supreme Courts.
I suppose that means I'll be seeing the old man in Austin more frequently. I'm proud of you, Dad, good job, and good luck.

8 comments:

Catonya said...

Congratulations to your Dad :)

Anonymous said...

Congrats to your dad! Does he ever bug you about not having a real job?

Gritsforbreakfast said...

Not too often, but I keep an ample stock of lawyer jokes handy as a retort, just in case.

Besides, even when I had a real job I'm not sure he ever quite grokked what it was I did for a living, so as a result I think he's getting used to it. ;)

Anonymous said...

So if your dad defended toxic tort cases, what does he think about Judge Criss?

/couldn't resist

Gritsforbreakfast said...

Never asked him about Judge Criss.

OTOH, FWIW, back when William Wayne Justice was the most hated man in Tyler, my Dad universally defended him as one of fairest judges he'd ever practiced under, even though they were ideologically miles apart. I've heard him stop someone badmouthing Judge Justice in mid-sentence and ask them not to speak ill of him in his presence, much to folks' surprise. He admires a powerful legal mind, even when he disagrees with somebody's politics or rulings.

My Pop's a lawyer's lawyer - a courthouse rat for 45 years. He disliked most of the recent tort reform stuff, thought it was overkill, and TADC opposed quite a bit of it. So while I don't know his view of Judge Criss, I think you'd be surprised to find that a lot of lawyers on the defense side of toxic torts like my Dad didn't like Texas "tort reform" any more than the trial lawyers. That was for the benefit of insurance companies and arbitrators, not guys like him. best,

Anonymous said...

Different ideology is fine. Dirty ideology is not.

I admire Judge Justice as well.

Anonymous said...

Also meant to add that I dislike tort reform as well.

In an earlier post I mentioned that judges like Judge Criss and others along the coast were biased in favor of plaintiffs, and led to the overreaction by the legislature. I mentioned that that was why she would not make a viable SCTX candidate.

You made an allusion to the fact that you thought that being biased for plaintiffs would make her a good Democrat candidate.

I think judges should be unbiased. The current slate of Republicans is anything but. But--fighting them with a biased Democrat is not the answer.

That's all I was saying in previous threads about Judge Criss--that she is part of the overall problem every bit as much as the Republicans who foisted tort reform on us.

All that's neither here nor there, I just wanted to respond to your "lots of defense lawyers dislike tort reform" comment. Because I happen to be one of them.

And last but not least, congratulations to your dad. That's a good deal.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations to dad grit.

Joe