Joe Jamail, Willie and Bobbie Nelson (1/1/08)
www.businessinsider.com
by Erin Geiger Smith
Legendary trial lawyer Joe Jamail, 83, made Slate’s 80 over 80 list, just behind Tony Bennett.
He’s won over $13 billion in judgments for his clients over more than 500 jury trials, but is most well-known for winning a contract case for Pennzoil against Texaco with a $10.53 bill verdict in 1985.
It’s the largest verdict ever upheld on appeal and the case eventually settled for $3 billion.
These facts and figures are well known in the Lone Star State, but the Slate list provides an opportunity to look at an ABA Journal profile of Jamail from last spring, which let us know how he prepared for the closing statement in that Exxon trial and is full of expletive-filled thoughts on the state of litigation.
The night before closing was going to be a quiet one of preparation and reflection, until Willie Nelson and former Texas Longhorn football coach Darrell Royal swung by to pick him up for a night of debauchery. He told them it was “the biggest damn case of my life,” but to no avail. “They kept me up all f***ing night drinking. I could barely see straight the next morning.”
Jamail was just shy of 60 at the time.
He plans on trying cases for another decade or so, and at the time of the profile in March he said he was representing three Fortune 200 companies in “bet-the-farm” lawsuits. Many litigators may take heart to know that Jamail thinks there will always be good work for trial lawyers, but he does not think white-shoe lawyers are the ones to handle it.
To read the entire article:
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/joe_jamail#sidebar