Deaths, Plaintiffs Firms

R.I.P. To A Billionaire Lawyer

By a lot of measures, Joe Jamail was the most successful lawyer of all time.

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Joe Jamail died Wednesday at the age of 90.

Dubbed the greatest lawyer who ever lived, Joe Jamail amassed a billion and a half fortune smacking people around as a lawyer and then telling his buddy Willie Nelson about it over drinks. The closest I’ve ever come to drinking with Willie Nelson was shotgunning a beer and vomiting during a Willie Nelson concert at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. I was 3. Jamail topped that when he, probably, went to court the next day and won a million dollars for someone.

Combative yet personable and respectful yet profane, Jamail was a larger-than-life bundle of contradictions. He was a character that you’d assume rolled into the courthouse out of central casting if he weren’t so unique — the “country lawyer” demeanor, while bringing home billions for an energy giant. Some people talk about selling ice to the Inuit (or Eskimos if they’re offensive pricks), but this guy got a city to pay up for a drunk driver who killed himself for f**k’s sake:

In an act of hubris, he represented the widow of a drunken driver fatally injured when his car jumped a curb and hit a tree. He persuaded a jury that the tree, on a traffic island in the middle of a street, had been planted in the wrong place by the city. His client won funeral expenses and $6,000 for suffering, and the city cut down the tree.

Jamail began his life in the law at the University of Texas, a fact that you’d know if you’ve spent any time in Austin where everything from the law library to the football field is named after him. Appropriate because the Longhorns offense looks like it’s been injured in an accident, amiright?

But, as the New York Times reports, his early days in law school weren’t smooth sailing:

In law school at the university, Mr. Jamail flunked his first course on torts, the field in which he would excel. Classmates recalled him as a gregarious, storytelling saloon companion and a brilliant but indifferent student. Months before receiving his law degree in 1953, he took the Texas bar exam on a $100 bet, cramming over a weekend and scoring 76, one point over the passing grade.

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Failing a 1L class should end a law school career, but I guess anything was possible back when law school didn’t cost a first-born. But how much fun would it be to fail torts and return as the most successful torts lawyer in America?

Jamail worked briefly at Fulbright, Crooker, Freeman, Bates & Jaworski before starting down the road toward starting his own shop. That path suited him, as he secured around $13 billion in awards for his clients, including a $3 billion settlement on behalf of Pennzoil in his first big corporate case.

And then, of course, there’s his star turn as the questioner in law’s only truly viral video — the archetype of an Above the Law story:

I don’t think I’m alone in wishing we got to see Jamail and that witness throw down.

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Perhaps the best eulogy for Jamail comes from UPROXX’s Danger Guerrero, who tweeted:

Joe Jamail died today. You should read about Joe Jamail. Joe Jamail was fun.

Indeed he was. He will be missed.

UPDATE: For more, here’s an interview with Jamail from our friends at Coverage Opinions.

Joe Jamail, Flamboyant Texas Lawyer Who Won Billions for Clients, Dies at 90 [New York Times]
The Greatest Lawyer Who Ever Lived [Texas Monthly]

Earlier: Joe Jamail And Texas Football
America’s Richest Lawyer Is An Inappropriate SOB Who Loves To Drop F-Bombs

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