Monday Mentors with Houston Trial Lawyer Will King

Will King is a trial lawyer in Houston with the firm Wallace & Allen, where he works to protect the rights of working people, homeowners, and small businesses in complex cases throughout the United States. Will talks about COVID litigation, trusting your instincts, and the importance of brevity.

His practice

• Commercial litigation, wage/hour defense, governmental litigation, constitutional litigation
• Spike in cases related to COVID since it may be the first time people/businesses are really seeing the power of government regulation
• Pre-COVID governmental litigation was limited to certain businesses, but now it is more widespread
• New executive orders from Governor Abbot lead directly to new client calls

COVID Update (10/8/20)

• Small firm with three lawyers and two staff
• Worked from home beginning in March and throughout most of the pandemic, but it has worked okay since most of his work is briefing work, and hearings have moved to Zoom
• Still prefers in-person hearings to get the vibe/read of the room, but for uncontested matters sticking with remote hearings makes sense post-COVID
• The importance of brevity in presentations has become critical when doing remote hearings/depositions; it is easy for virtual listeners to get bored and stop paying attention
• Consider what is in the background of your video shot, and the placement/angle of your video camera

Advice to lawyers in practice

• Trust your own instincts (that doesn't mean overconfident); understand where your client, the other side, and the judge are coming from; use common sense! Don't assume that senior lawyers in your own firm or on the other side know what they are talking about.
• As a lawyer you are constantly learning; the law is always changing and cases are always different
• Re: briefing, don't kill yourself looking for a case that is precisely on point. There usually isn't a perfect case. You need to make the best argument you can. Though it is important to know if a case on point (or close) goes against you!
• If there isn't a case(s) because the issue is novel or because the cases are from another era making it hard to extrapolate, think through what the policy and goals of the law were and how they apply to your set of facts.
• In old-time cases, judicial opinions focused more on general principles than discreet elements of the law; this allowed for more creativity, if not also less predictability in how it applies to other/future/contemporary cases.
• To build business
  • Get facetime with your client as much as possible; this will yield to referrals and more business from that client and others
  • Build relationships: referral sources and clients themselves (often depending on the type of practice)
• Work/life balance
  • Ask the question: what is your stamina like? If not a grinder, then tailor the job search for an employer that can fit that.
  • Can come/go depending on the week/month, so prepare that it will vary throughout the year.
  • When evaluating, don't just look at "hour requirements" if it takes a lot of non-billable hours to get to the billable requirement.

Advice to lawyers on the job search

• Make sure your resume is properly formatted, no typos
• Have a solid writing sample to present that shows your writing style/tone, how you isolate/address the issue
  • Doesn't matter so much what the content is, but rather does it show that you can communicate in a clear/concise manner
  • What are you most proud of? Submit that!
• In an interview
  • Can you hold a conversation and speak like a regular person
  • Are you on the same wavelength with the interviewer? If not, then perhaps it isn't a great fit.

Final Thoughts: Much of the job is learning on the fly. Read other lawyer's work product to see what is good and then shape it into your own style.

Rapid Fire Questions:

• One trait/characteristic you most want to see in an associate: ability to problem solve
• Habit that is key to success: remembering how much you don't know; thorough in research
• Favorite app/tool: Westlaw
• Favorite social distancing activity: yard work
• Favorite legal movie: Better Call Saul (show)

Thanks again to Will King for joining us on today's show!