OTLA Trial Lawyer Fall 2022

2 Trial Lawyer • Fall 2022 By Blair Townsend OTLA Guardian When I was 11-years-old, my dad, Tommy Townsend, drove me to school and, apparently curious for the first time in my life about his profession, I asked him what he did for a living. At the time, he was executive director of OTLA’s sister organization, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association. However, instead of telling me what he did for a living, he explained his why. Pointing to the seatbelt I was wearing, he explained “a company made that seatbelt to keep you safe. And in making that seatbelt, they had two choices. They could use an eight-cent screw that was strong and durable and did its job or they could use a five-cent screw, an okay screw, not as strong, but it worked most of the time. Well, three cents doesn’t sound like a huge difference but when a company The five-cent screw vs. the eight-cent screw makes hundreds of thousands of cars each year, that company would be tempted to choose the cheaper screw so they could make more money. Problem was, even though the five-cent screw worked most of the time, when it didn’t, that seatbelt might not work and people would get hurt. I work to make sure they use the eight-cent screw.” It didn’t sink in at the time (I mean, if it didn’t involve Saved by the Bell, who cared?), but ultimately, my father's why became my why. Life isn’t always fair, companies and the people within them don’t always make the right choices and our society needs laws and lawyers to even out the playing field. Sometimes, three cents can be the deciding factor in someone’s life, health and safety. With a dad in the trial lawyer world, two older brothers, also lawyers, and a mom who worked in the Texas Legislature, you’d think becoming a plaintiff’s lawyer would be a no-brainer. In reality, because of my family and the feeling that the yellow brick road toward the law was already paved before me, I bristled against it for years before every twist of fate led me here, lending lessons along the way. New identity Being a plaintiff’s lawyer is an identity, not a 9-5 job. That said, given my family’s loud and spirited conversations around the dinner table, it’s not as if I thought I would become an accountant. I just figured the political realm was going to be my launching pad. Nineteen years ago, I worked at a political watchdog group ca l l ed Texas Watch, a consumer advocacy group dedicated to holding insurance companies and corporations accountable. Specifically, I handled opposition research for the “No on Prop 12” campaign, an effort to defeat a measure capping noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases at $250,000. While Texas is a “tad” more conservative than Oregon, this should be uncomfortably familiar to all of us, particularly those who fought these ballot measures in Oregon. I spent my time studying the propaganda of the insurance companies, i.e., that doctors would flee en masse, that insurance premiums would go up and that greedy trial lawyers were to blame. Again, sound familiar? We lost the campaign by a slim margin but it ignited my belief in politics and its ability to connect people with causes and create change within our institutions. In part, from that experience, I graduated early from college and moved to Washington D.C. While there, I worked for the Center for American Progress, a progressive thinktank, and the American Association for Justice. I was able to attend Senate hearings and draft excruciatingly researched briefs on issues that people in leadership positions would President’s Message Blair Townsend

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