Insight

Standing Out From the Crowd

“They tried to make ‘lawsuit’ and ‘trial lawyer’ bad words in this state. For many of us, the courtroom is the only place we can get equal access to justice against powerful people and major corporations. I will defend that right every day.”

ML

Mark Lanier

August 2, 2015 12:00 AM

For Mark Lanier, being a successful lawyer goes beyond winning in the courtroom.

Make no mistake. Lanier has had plenty of courtroom success. Since The Lanier Law Firm opened its doors nearly 25 years ago, Lanier and his team have won multiple record-setting verdicts and settlements, including individual jury awards of $417 million, $253.5 million and $118 million, to name a few.

But what sets Lanier apart from many of his fellow attorneys is his sense of calling.

“We want to make a difference, to be part of something that changes society for the better,” Lanier says of himself and his firm. “People come to us when they need help, when they need justice.”

When asked to point to a case that means a lot to him, Lanier mentions Brett Hartmann. Hartmann was the NFL’s leading rookie punter when his Houston Texans played the Atlanta Falcons on Dec. 4, 2011. In the game’s closing moments, Hartmann was running down the field when his foot became wedged in a seam between two pieces of Reliant Stadium’s grass turf.

Video replays clearly show him stepping into the seam before falling to the field in agony. Lanier and his firm represent Hartmann in his lawsuit over Reliant Stadium’s poor field conditions, which caused him to suffer a career-threatening leg injury.

“This young man’s career may be over almost before it started,” says Lanier. “But we hope our work goes beyond just helping him, and will cause stadium operators around the country to make playing surfaces safer for athletes at all levels.”

This past fall, Reliant Stadium’s operators began using a separate turf for high school games in an effort to limit the damage to the main field turf used for NFL games.

Hartmann’s case is the latest taken on by The Lanier Law Firm’s Sports & Entertainment group, which is one of the firm’s fastest growing practices. The group also helped negotiate a landmark settlement with the National Collegiate Athletic Association after a Rice University student-athlete with sickle-cell trait died after an intense workout.

Lanier’s dedication to making a difference is exhibited in the types of cases his firm handles. Whether it’s athletes needlessly injured, patients hurt by dangerous prescription drugs, families whose loved ones have been killed in workplace accidents, individuals injured by defective products, or businesses involved in legal battles, Lanier is dedicated to finding justice even if it means taking on the world’s largest institutions and corporations.

But Lanier also works to defend the very idea of trial lawyers and the civil justice system, particularly in his home state of Texas. When the state’s conservative leaders pushed tort reform legislation that would later make filing lawsuits more difficult and reduce large damage awards, Lanier spoke out despite being a staunch conservative himself.

“They tried to make ‘lawsuit’ and ‘trial lawyer’ bad words in this state,” he says. “For many of us, the courtroom is the only place we can get equal access to justice against powerful people and major corporations. I will defend that right every day.”

And when special interest groups and the media began labeling trial lawyers as left-wing money-grubbers, Lanier responded by founding the Christian Trial Lawyers Association. Like Lanier, members of CTLA rely on their Christian principles to help dispel the negative publicity directed at every lawyer.

“Above all, I believe that the courtroom and life should both be a reflection of the truth,” says Lanier, an ordained minister who teaches a class of more than 700 people each Sunday. “I strive to be genuine and authentic every day, both in and out of the courtroom. And juries seem to connect with that.”

His quest to be true to himself means he’s gone up against his own political party to defend the rights of plaintiffs, and he has been outspoken about his faith and purpose both in and out of the courtroom. Those qualities, and more, certainly make Lanier stand out.

When a movie was being made based on an antitrust lawsuit victory that Lanier had won on behalf of a medical products manufacturer, the film’s producers auditioned several actors for the role of the lead attorney. After they couldn’t find the right fit, Lanier agreed to handle the role himself after the producers told him, “There is only one person who can be Mark Lanier.”

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