Intro:
Stewart Guss is 47 years
old and has 20 years experience an attorney, concentrating primarily in
personal injury law at his practice in Nortwest Houston. Stewart graduated from the University of Texas
at Austin and is a proud graduate of the University of Houston Law Center. He lives in Tomball with his wife, two
rambunctious children and one rambunctious dog.
Attorney Guss has a long
track record of making substantial recoveries for his clients while providing
“top shelf” customer service. Building a niche in the ultra-competitive
personal injury market in Houston has been difficult, and it remains an ongoing
challenge. A good reputation as a personal injury lawyer is hard earned
and is far from “static.” What factors go into his success and professional
satisfaction, and what advice does he have for law students and graduates?
Interview:
Q: What made you decide
to study law?
A: I’ve got to be honest
here. As I approached college graduation, I was equally interested in a
career in business and in law. After spending a year at the McCombs MBA
program at UT Austin, I realized that I was not “corporate” material. I
needed a career where I could express my creativeness and individuality and
wear my hair long if I wanted to. (Hey, it was the 80s!)
Q: Why did you focus
your practice on Plaintiffs Personal Injury Law?
A: I actually started
off doing mostly appellate work and business litigation. While I found
this work intellectually challenging and stimulating, I didn’t necessarily “feel”
the tangible successes I had. As I started doing more and more personal
injury work, I realized that I thrived on the satisfaction of looking a client
in the eye and saying, “This is what my work has done for you, this is the
difference I could make in your life going forward.” When I did personal
injury work, I really felt like I was making a significant and tangible
difference in someone’s life.
Q: I am told that
breakfast is the most important meal of the day… What’s your typical morning
routine? And please expand to give us an idea of a day in the life of a
Personal Injury Lawyer
A:
<laughing> Oh no, don’t tell my mom, but my typical breakfast
is a huge cup of coffee! My day normally starts before the rest of my
staff arrives at the office. I like to catch up on emails and interoffice
messages in our case management system. I’m lucky enough to have a pretty
sizeable docket, so I usually set aside a dozen or so cases to review for
status every day - just to make sure everything is moving ahead as planned.
When finished, it is usually safe to start returning calls to clients,
adjusters, opposing counsel, etc. After lunch, I’ll usually move on to my
bigger projects - preparing or reviewing demand packages, reviewing medical
records, reviewing or responding to motions or other correspondence. I’m
typically the first in and the last out, but this is a habit my family is
desperately trying to get me to change.
Q: What separates the
good, the bad and the ugly in Personal Injury Lawyers?
A: That’s a great
question! I’m lucky enough to be friends with a LOT of really great,
talented, and very caring personal injury attorneys. Typically speaking,
these men and women share the same passion for justice when working on their
clients’ cases. I know that sounds hokey, but its really not. The
Plaintiffs bar in Texas is MASSIVELY outgunned and out-resourced by the
insurance industry. We are underdogs almost EVERY single time we take on
a new personal injury client. The best personal injury lawyers that I
know really look at their cases as a personal challenge to “take on the system”
on behalf of a deserving client and make a difference in their lives.
While I truly think that there are WAY fewer “bad” personal injury
lawyers than the public may think, I do see that there are some lawyers that
start to focus on the money and the business end of things more than doing the
right thing for a deserving client. These guys are few and far between,
however. I think most of us at the Plaintiff's bar believe the best way
to do “well,” professionally, is by doing “good” in the world and for our
clients.
Q: What advice would you
give graduates starting out in the job?
A: My best advice is
this - find a job where you can learn what you need to learn and “earn your
stripes” in the field. Think of your first job out of law school the same
way a doctor looks at her residency - an opportunity to work massive hours at
modest or low pay and learn a HECK of a lot in the process. My second
best piece of advice - LISTEN to the long time legal secretaries and other
staff. You may be a newly minted “second lieutenant” but you better pay
attention to experienced support staff. They are the “career sergeants”
that keep things running!
Q: What is the best
professional advice you’ve ever received?
A: The best professional
advice I ever received is simple. Attorney Alvin Rosenthal, another
University of Houston Law Center graduate (class of ‘55) told me that I would
achieve success on the cases I declined, not the cases I took. That is to
say, trust your instincts. Make sure that when you accept representation
you do it with the right client and for the right reasons. Alvin is
passed now, but I often find myself in my professional career thinking, WWAD?
(What would Alvin do?)
Q: How do you
distinguish yourself from the pack in Personal Injury Law?
A: As I mentioned,
there are a lot of great lawyers doing a lot of good work for Plaintiffs in the
Houston area and around the state. There are lots of lawyers getting lots
of great settlements and verdicts, and I do concentrate on results of course.
But in addition to focusing on our results, we also focus on providing
excellent customer service and communication. Most of us know that the
number one complaint about lawyers from clients is lack of communication.
At my office we have a “4/24” rule in place: All calls and emails
should be returned within four hours, and MUST be returned within 24, even if
it is say “we don’t have an answer or solution yet, but we’re working on it.”
Q:
Aside from law, what should every graduate understand about running a business?
A:
Only some of the Law Center graduates will immediately open up their own
practice. Even for those that initially go to work for someone else, they
may end up running their own business or with partners at some point in the
future. For this reason, it is a great idea to understand the business
of law, not just the practice of law. If you ask 10 law firm
owners their “secret to success,” you’ll surely get 11 different answers!
I suspect, though, that there may be a few universal truths: 1)
Find and keep good employees and support staff. Pay them fairly, treat
them fairly, and let them grow professionally. 2) Implement technology
that will help increase efficiency and effectiveness, but don’t implement
technology just for the sake of having the latest and greatest bells and
whistles. 3) Concentrate on steady and measured growth, and avoid
excessive debt. Many personal injury lawyers and law firms launching an
office will start out with large debts so they can have wood paneling and
antique fine furniture in their reception and offices. There is a
difference between an air of “success” and an air of “opulence.” Your
clients are interested in your results, not your furniture. Besides, do
you REALLY want them wondering if their case will buy you your next Persian
rug?
Q: What trends do you
see in types of personal injury on the rise / decline?
A: No surprise
here - texting and driving! Or, more specifically, using a smartphone
while driving. While commuting, I can’t tell you the number of people I
see with phones pulled up to their faces. We see accidents caused, not
just by texting, but by people browsing the web or looking at Facebook updates!
Q: Which cases most
interest you from a point of financial / personal satisfaction?
A: At this point in my
career, I really enjoy working on serious injury cases. A great many of
my cases involve moderate car accidents and slip and falls where a client is
injured, receives medical treatment, and eventually recovers. I do enjoy
these cases, but they tend to be more straight-forward. I tend to get the
greatest satisfaction working on serious injury cases where I have to work closely
with my client to establish the full scope of a damage model - loss of future
earning capacity, the full effects of ongoing disability, and the loss of
damage of life. My serious injury clients have an important story to tell
the insurance company or a jury, and I really appreciate the opportunity to
help them tell it.
Q: If you weren’t a
Personal Injury Lawyer what would be your dream job and why?
A: Psychologist.
My undergraduate degree is in psychology, and I am constantly fascinated
by the human mind. My twenty years practicing law has given me the
opportunity to help a lot of injured people get through a really tough time in
their lives. I really appreciate that opportunity to be of service to
people, and if I weren’t doing it as their lawyer and advocate, I think I would
be doing it as a therapist. (Which is, by the way, a role most attorneys
will have to play part of the time anyway!).
Q: Final question: Which
three famous lawyers (dead or alive) would you like to have dinner with
and why?
1) Thomas Jefferson.
Not just because he was one of the most fascinating of our founding
fathers, but because I’d like to know what he thought of the effects of the
Marbury vs. Madison decision (decided during his presidency) over the last 200
years of American jurisprudence.
2) Justice John Marshall
Harlan. To thank him for his dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson.
3) Atticus Finch.
To thank him for inspiring me to become a lawyer and, every time I
re-read “To Kill a Mockingbird,” for reminding me what it means to be a lawyer.
(Yes, I know, he is a fictional character - so sue me!)
Students: send us
your questions!
12777
Jones Road, Suite 297
Houston,
TX, 77070, USA
