I actually have a degree in sociology and behavior analysis and when I got those degrees from the University of North Texas I never really anticipated how that would work to my favor but I think both of those have helped me very much in understanding the group think that goes on in a jury.

We’ve increased the quality of life for people who’ve been severely injured and we’ve actually had the opportunity to save some lives in civil cases.

Well this particular client had an injury in a surgery his ureter was nicked in a surgery but rather than admit that he’d made the error the doctor continued, the surgeon continued to deny that he ever made this injury. And our client had a prolonged course of treatment, other surgeries he required and he ended up owing over a million dollars in medical expenses that his health insurance company through his employer paid.

What was remarkable about the case from our perspective is when the insurance company came to us and said share your settlement with us and pay us back the million dollars that we paid in your medical expense. We were able to go back and go through the CPT billing codes that the doctor had written down for the diagnosis and why all that treatment was necessary. Of course, he never admitted that he injured the ureter so none of those CPT codes were for a ureter injury. Consequently, we were able to satisfy that subrogation claim where the insurance company wanted paid back for tens of thousands of dollars rather than the over a million dollars that they sought. It was a great result for our client. ‘

I’m a beekeeper. I have for the last three or four years kept bees and I found that studying their society is also very interesting with my sociology background.

If a young lawyer came to me and wanted advice on how to best prepare for the courtroom I would say first, get yourself some trials. Every case out there doesn’t have to be a multimillion-dollar case and the way you develop your skills is twofold. One, it’s to try cases and two, its continuing education. Even after 25 years, I’m constantly going to classes, developing my skills. Bill Wood’s been in practice nearly 50 years he still goes to continuing education, always, always trying to improve our skills.