Monday Mentors with Houston Trial Lawyer James Amaro

James Amaro, of the personal injury firm Amaro Law Firm, joins us to talk about practicing a heavy case load during COVID-19, how to be useful in all areas of life, and a key missed opportunity job seekers make on resumes.

COVID update (as of 4/9/20)

• Firm has been tech savvy for a long time; most of the intake is virtual, but after that people do like to come in
• 30 people in the office in Houston that had to go remote
  • hired consultants and really looked hard at how best to do this
  • High risk employees were prioritized
  • VOIP investment
• Much of the litigation show went one, and filing deadlines were continuing to come up
• Daily morning meeting/update
• Keep everyone on their top three things they need to do (hardest first)
• Monitoring the COVID data regularly to try and stay up to date and be ready to adjust
• He had only done a few Zoom depos prior to this
• Some insurance companies don't want to use Zoom due to security issues and want to use WebEx
  • Also need to learn depo-specific technology (exhibit presentations)
• Courts and orders have been a challenge
  • Several state courts have been inconsistent
  • Federal courts are doing their own thing
  • Keep the team updated on changes
• Tough for new graduates with the Bar exam and entering the profession during this

His firm/practice

• Started in insurance defense before jumping out on his own in 2005 to work on the BP explosion in Texas City
  • Actually was going to start a job at the SEC in New York, then 9/11 happened.
• Almost 100% personal injury now (he had done some insurance work earlier - tried the first Hurricane Ike case to verdict)
  • Still involved in the Deep Water Horizon case (10 years old)
  • Lots of brain injury and trucking cases on top of the typical car wreck case
• Wanted to build a firm that he would have wanted to join coming out of law school
  • thinks millennials get a bad rap
• COVID has dramatically reduced the traffic on the roads, which lowers car wreck numbers

Advice for young lawyers

• Be used and useful
  • help where you can help; not just at the firm but in all areas of your life
  • check in on people; let them know you care / thinking of them
  • try to set aside personal/financial ambition; that will come over time
• take advantage of professional development opportunities books/seminars/etc.
• if you want to build your own book of business or clients, establish relationships with lawyers who have the infrastructure to front cases and ask them if you can help
  • over time of doing great work and providing great customer service will lead to positive reviews and referrals, which leads to business (Mattress Mack example; Zappos book)

Advice for lawyers applying for jobs

• Looks for people who did well in school (reflects effort)
• No typos
• justify text in every document
• put your strengths up first; no cutting/pasting of typical resume bullets; be specific about how what you did helped someone
• put some conversation starters in your resume
• prepare well for the interview; show what you can add to the team in value
• show you want to be there for some amount of time, so the firm doesn't feel like it might be wasting its investment if you leave after a year or two

Rapid Fire Questions

• trait/characteristic you most want to see in an associate: realness/authenticity
• key habit: being real / true to yourself
• favorite app/productivity tool: Outlook
• favorite social distancing activity: spending time with 5-month old daughter
• favorite legal movie: A Civil Action

Thanks again to James Amaro for joining us on the show!