Attorney Howard Nations is enjoying his 59th year as a lawyer by continuing to work full-time on his 14,000-case docket. His reverence for the law and his enthusiasm for achieving justice for his clients result in high-quality legal work, undiminished by the inherent pressures and difficulties of the tasks.
Mr. Nations’ 59 years of remarkable accomplishments are recognized by his brethren at the bar, as exemplified by his induction into The Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame and the honor of receiving the American Association for Justice’s highest accolade: AAJ’s Lifetime Achievement Award, along with many other merit-based awards and citations.
Mr. Nations’ keys to success as a lawyer begin with professionalism: respect the law, respect the profession, respect the ethics rules, respect the Courts and our adversarial system, respect your clients, respect juries, show professionalism with opposing counsel, the court staff, and the verdict results produced by our court system in the name of justice.
Pay close attention to detail in all you seek to accomplish; do not fall prey to the bane of the trial lawyer’s existence: procrastination; instead, extol the virtues of one of the most essential words in the English language: begin.
Mr. Nations was admitted to practice on September 15, 1966, and taught his first class at South Texas College of Law in January 1967. For the next 25 years, he taught trial-related courses and trial skills in the Civil Trial Advocacy course. On the national lecture circuit, Mr. Nations is one of the most prolific speakers in the profession, having spoken in all 50 states, six Canadian provinces, and 12 foreign countries.
For nearly six decades, Mr. Nations has excelled as a courtroom advocate, educator, leader of the Trial Bar, innovator-at-law, and creator of improvements over past practices. He believes that, in this dynamic age in which we practice, “how lawyers have always done it” is a starting point for improvement rather than an exemplar for the present.
Mr. Nations has enjoyed a diverse and remarkable career as a trial lawyer. His stellar reputation has brought him participation in a number of high-profile cases with high-profile clients, including the defense of Mohammed Ali, the defense of Jimmy Hoffa, the Candace Mossler murder trial, the trial of 57 Bandido gang members, prosecuting a Tennessee Supreme Court case on behalf of country music legend Hank Snow, and suing country music legend Johnny Cash and legendary rapper Jay-Z, among others.
Mr. Nations also gained valuable courtroom experience by representing accused criminals, pro bono, in over 300 felony criminal cases. He says that over his career, about 10% of his cases were criminal defense and 90% were civil prosecutions, but 90% of his war stories arise from criminal cases. In comparison, 10% of the war stories and 99% of the fees arise from civil litigation.
As a courtroom innovator, Mr. Nations was the first attorney to introduce computer-generated animations and animated medical graphics into evidence at trial in 1989. The case involved the defective seat design of the roller coaster at AstroWorld, which caused a rider to suffer hemiplegia due to severe G forces. The jury verdict resulted in creating a new industry safety standard that required roller coasters to use enhanced safety straps in the seat designs to immobilize the upper body and protect riders from the effects of G-forces, which caused the hemiplegia.
That 1989 jury verdict resulted from the Nations Law Firm employing a multidisciplinary team approach of attorneys, engineers, computer graphics specialists, trial consultants, and focus groups to create a highly technical yet simple trial story for the jury, heavily supported by technology. The other important factor was the willingness to spend $128,000 on graphics and animation design and creation.
Mr. Nations also pioneered using focus groups as an important tool of pretrial preparation. In 1984, he participated in focus groups for political purposes and decided this could be useful to test juror opinions before trial. He established an independent focus group company to acquire jury-qualified participants and conduct the administrative aspects of focus groups. He has conducted hundreds of focus groups over the last forty years. Mr. Nations also introduced forensic psychology and neurolinguistic programming in court. Through another technological innovation, the Nations Law firm recovered $154 million in damages from British Petroleum in the infamous BP Gulf oil spill.
As a leader in legal education, Mr. Nations co-founded AAJ’s National College of Advocacy, the organization through which all AAJ educational programming is conducted. He also created the National Trial Lawyers Summit, which draws about 1,500 lawyers to Miami each January.
The Nations Law firm represents 14,000 clients, most of whom are members of what Mr. Nations calls his Heroes docket, i. e., veterans at Camp Lejeune coping with ten deadly diseases as result of the known carcinogenic toxins in the drinking water; wounded warriors and Gold Star family members who are the victims of Iranian sponsored terrorism; and firefighters also facing cancer and other debilitating diseases because of exposure to carcinogens in the AFFF firefighter foam to which they are exposed in training and while fighting fires.
Mr. Nations responds to the issue of retirement by stating that there is too much important work to do for too many clients who have suffered devastating injuries and damages and who need help more than ever. He is also motivated by the fact that a substantial portion of the fees that the Nations Law firm collects will be paid into The Howard Nations Foundation, for support to veterans and firefighter organizations, hospitals and universities doing cancer research, and other worthy causes as determined by the Foundation Board of Directors.
