Hunter Craft has handled some of the biggest cases against car makers, trucking companies and major corporations in the United States. He blazed his own path and had hard times along the way. Now, he is running a great practice and doing great work for people in need. He joined the podcast to talk about being an attorney and give advice to young attorneys. He is my friend and the closest thing to a mentor I ever had.

Transcript:

Justin Hill: Welcome to Hill Law Firm Cases, a podcast discussing real-world cases handled by Justin Hill and the Hill Law Firm. For confidentiality reasons, names and amounts of any settlements have been removed. However, the facts are real, and these are the cases we handle on a day to day basis.

[music]

Justin: All right. Welcome to this episode of Hill Law Firm Cases podcast. I just made Hunter Craft listen to our ominous intro music, which the podcast that I started for the law firm has really kind of changed since I've started it and it's become more of just kind of a-- I really think if you just listened to the podcast, you would learn everything you need to know about my law firm, who's here, who we work with, and the types of cases we handle. Honestly, I think that's been a pretty big success. Hunter, thank you for being here.

Hunter Craft: Justin, thanks for having me, man. I'm looking forward to visiting with you.

Justin: Yes, a little color commentary. Hunter is who I tell people has been the closest thing I've had to having a mentor. As a lawyer, he was a Attorney at Watts when I started, he then became a capital partner with his name on the wall at some point, which was well deserved. I worked in his office. I worked on cases with him, and then over time, we started our own law firms, and still occasionally, we work together. I rely upon Hunter heavily to provide me guidance, sometimes tell me when I'm being an idiot, and really just be a great friend. I'm glad you're here and I want to talk to you about the things that I think are interesting about you.

Like I told you before the show, the context is, a lot of people nerd out about being lawyers. I tell people you're the best lawyer they've never heard of because you're not into the pomp and the stuff on Facebook and all that, you do it quietly and you do a great job. I'm getting the opportunity to ask you questions that I'm sure a bunch of lawyers wish they could.

Hunter: Well, I appreciate it. I tell you, I've told a million people that the greatest compliment I've ever gotten is the one you gave me, and that is that you refer to me as the greatest lawyer that people have never heard of. It's a source of pride with me. I've always been taught, and since growing up under my father, that it doesn't take pomp and circumstance, you don't need billboards, you don't need TV ads, you don't need to brag about everything that happens is good, if you do a good job for your clients and you're fighting every lawyer out there, to whom that will eventually be relevant, will know about it.

Justin: I think to everyone that comes across your path, they know who you are. It's funny in my world, there are so many lawyers I run across and talk to, and there's some that have never heard of you, and then the ones that have worked with you or against you have nothing but great things to say. Let's just get started. You and I are both Baylor Law graduates. You were there a little bit before me. You left Baylor and got the job at one of the firms that everybody leaving Baylor wishes they could get. Fulbright & Jaworski, man, that was one of the top echelon firms. What drew you to Fulbright? Then honestly, you weren't there that long, so what drew you to leave?

Hunter: The obvious answers on Fulbright, it was one of the jobs that everybody really wanted. You got to crawl into an elevator and go up 41 flights and get out and hear the Dane and look around and see some of the greatest talent in the country walking the halls. You walked down the hall and you were picking the brains of people like Steve Dillard and OtwayDenny and some of these names that a lot of your listeners will know too.

I don't know how you turn down that opportunity. Every case that you were working on was important. The guidance, the leadership, the brain power, the resources that you had was-- I can't think of a better way that I could have started my career, but ultimately, I wasn't drawn to defending corporate America. In fact, my heartstrings pulled me in the opposite direction. I know that they deserve a defense and they deserve a good defense, but that was not my cup of tea.

Justin: Also, a different thing about the air when you came out, where the big building silk stocking firms, most of them still had some amount of litigation power in them. They've all moved away from that, it seems like, but you were on the back end of the big firms having stud litigators. Fair to say that a lot of those have moved away from that, right?

Hunter: There's no question. I'm not necessarily proud of it because I would scold a young lawyer for approaching it the way I did, but honestly, when the offers went out after clerkship, I made it a very clear point to Fulbright, and I had another neat opportunity, and we can talk about that later if some other people have clerked on it, but ultimately, one of the conditions to go into Fulbright is I said, "You've got to put me on one of these two last tort teams. There was two teams and it's divided into teams and those were the only people doing real world litigation anymore. All the rest of it was paper pushing and these giant commercial lawsuits and that sort of thing.

In terms of actually having an opportunity to get there and fight it out a little bit, there were really only two teams left, and I insisted upon it, and frankly, instead of kicking me in the rear end and sending me on down the road, they were receptive to the idea. I did, I got a lot of great experience [unintelligible 00:05:16] the last waning years of that opportunity in big firm law.

Justin: What were your other job offers? You mentioned it, so what were they?

Hunter: I was really torn between-- You have the usual slew of some big firms that I had interviewed with, but the other clerkship I took was really interesting. Someday when we have another 15 minutes, I'll tell you how I ended up in Fulbright of Houston, but I grew up in Dallas and I had a really unique opportunity to work under somebody that was a defense lawyer then who is now one of the pre-eminent plaintiff's lawyers in the country, Charla Aldous.

Justin: I didn't know that.

Hunter: I did, I clerked with her back when it was Cooper, Aldous & Scully. I walked in day one, and for whatever reason, she happened to be in the office, because she was always out of the office, [unintelligible 00:05:59] cases, and walked by and said, "Let's go grab lunch. I want to meet the new kid." We hit it off and I did the predominance of my work for her and through her. She was real honest with me that she wasn't probably long for that insurance billable defense work, that that portion of her career was winding down at the time, and so it made it a little easier to end up at Fulbright, but that was certainly a unique opportunity.

Justin: She's gone on to have an incredibly successful career-

Hunter: She's amazing.

Justin: -yes, as a plaintiff's lawyer now. You were at Fulbright. You stayed what? Nine months-ish?

Hunter: No, I was there 18. I was there twice, Justin. [laughs]

Justin: So, two. For whatever reason I was in gestation periods to me, two children worth. [laughs] Yes, there's reasons, I think, in those terms at this point in my life, but from there, you went straight into what would have been Watts and Heard at the time. That's about the time-- What year would that have been?

Hunter: It was April of 2001.

Justin: That's probably about the time I started looking in Texas Lawyer and stuff like that, and they were on the full page ads about these monster verdicts and monster settlements. Those guys, they were the new kid on the block, and they were hot as fire could be.

Hunter: All I can remember is, back when people used to get Texas Lawyer in print format, and you could see these full page of Denman and Michael walking up to the courthouse and it would say, "Watts and Heard coming soon to a courthouse near you. Have $35 million in verdicts and 35 whatever, all before the age of 35."

Justin: It was pretty good.

Hunter: It was a flash and I got a hand to those guys, not only did they market it well, but frankly, they backed it up. Two of the better trial lawyers, I think, I've ever had the privilege of watching work.

Justin: Watts came on here and I had a lot of young lawyers reach out that, "How did you get him to come on your show?" You know what I mean? There still is that mentality of there are people that are kind of untouchable. If you're a guy doing TV commercials, you can never meet George Clooney, and I think a lot of young plaintiff's lawyers trying to make it, and that's the top of the heap and he deserved it.

Hunter: In fairness, that's something that I was drawn to always, about what he is, a tremendously successful lawyer, well earned. He has had a lot of notoriety, all of it based upon hard work and success, but really, if there's ever a guy you could sit down and drink a Miller Lite with, as you know, [unintelligible 00:08:31] would be happy to pull up a chair right next to him, wherever he's sitting and visit with somebody, pick their brain, and let you pick his brain, communicate with you. He was definitely influential in my career in terms of that.

Justin: How did you get over to Watts? Leaving Fulbright, I'm sure there were lots of options for someone like you, you'd already had a good academic career, you've got the pedigree of Fulbright & Jaworski, you worked on a tort team there. Otway Denny, I know was one of the guys that, you said, has mentored you at that point in your career, who still is a legend. How did you choose and end up at Watts?

Hunter: Its a really funny, it was all through Denman Heard. I'd never met Michael. There was a lawyer, who I just hold in great regard, that was a little ahead of me at Baylor and then at Fulbright, and then he jumped to Michael. A guy named Roger Braugh. Roger had already left. His family was from the Kingsville area. He had already left to go work for Michael when Michael was just in Corpus. Word had leaked that Denman was joining Michael and that they might need an associate. It leaked through one of Denman's old law partners when he was at Williams Bailey or whatever the iteration was when Denman was.

Just by word of mouth, I ended up meeting Denman for a bucket of beers at a place that's no longer there in downtown Houston. After about two hours, I was sold. I walked in the next morning and had a painful conversation with the guys at Fulbright that I'd made a decision to do something different.

Justin: You went through this in a way I did not. Without getting into details, you left a real salary to go work for Michael, which was basically eat-what-you-kill type of environment. What was your process in doing that, sit down with your wife at the time and say, "Look, we're going to have some lean years," or did you just expect it was going to be super easy?

Hunter: I didn't. I thought it was going to be easier than what it ended up being, and it certainly wasn't easy, and I'm grateful for that. This day, it was a situation where we were pregnant. We had just bought a house and I didn't have a salary. It was a draw. I didn't even know what a draw was. I remember the first question that I asked when we got into a firm meeting as somebody kept using the term referral lawyer, and I raised my hand just like I was in law school and asked what a referral lawyer was.

I was green. It was a hard steep learning curve. I tell the story. It's really funny. I got into a fist fight in my front yard with a Ford Motor credit guy that came to repossess my expedition that I'd bought when I had a Fulbright salary and I physically could not make the payments on it anymore. I had bill collectors calling me, I had everybody calling me, and that's when-- My wife had a job and a salary. She was doing the best she could, but ultimately, her goal and our goal for her was to be a stay-at-home mom. You can imagine the compounding problems that I had created by taking a steady certain job when she's pregnant and ended up to a place we were physically fighting off bill collectors.

Looking back on it, I can say it with a smile. It wasn't funny then explaining to the West View police why I had just taken a swing at the Ford Motor tow truck driver. Looking back on it now, I'm so grateful for those years because it's made me hungry, it's made me smart when we've had the opportunities to have some success, that those days can come again and don't let them catch you off guard.

Justin: I think the dumber thing was taking a swing at a tow truck driver. Those guys are grizzled.

Hunter: It ended quickly, thank goodness.

Justin: They have tire irons.

Hunter: It was more of a crime of passion than of wisdom.

Justin: My experience at Watts I was told I have a salary and then I was coaxed to leave that fore draw that I paid interest on. Now, when I meet with young lawyers that especially want to get on the plaintiff's side, I have a different perspective of how compensation should be structured, because you look at people like you, me to a much less extent, who struggled when you had the opportunity to make a lot more money elsewhere. It's a different mentality. I think once you've had to go through that and you have to humble yourself [unintelligible 00:12:43] "I chose this and I'm broke right now."

Hunter: It's interesting as you look to hire young lawyers, there are just no young lawyers really anymore that are willing to take that eat-what-you-kill right off the bat. I tell everybody, I said, "You're welcome to have a salary and I'll pay you a salary because I don't want anybody have to go through what I went through. At the same time, I can promise you you're going to be a better lawyer. It's going to make you hungrier and it's going to teach you to invest in you." It's real easy to take an automatic deposit to your account every two weeks, it's a whole different idea to completely bet your financial independence and survivability upon you, your ability, and your work ethic.

Justin: I think I learned a lot of that from you. I just started cold calling every lawyer I could find in town because somebody was going to refer me a case and that was going to help me get out of my financial straits.

You went over to Watts, you had a handful of years that were rough. I think you told me about even going to the Hammer's office and picking up some of their referred out stuff that nobody wanted. You got to go on like the third day and pick over trash, but you were hungry, you were doing what you could, take what you could. Then if I recall, you said you had a big break because you had a Ford case. Watts had just got into a war with Ford and yours was the first set for trial in that war. So much of that is luck. Talk to me about how important the Ford wars were for you as a lawyer in your development? How much luck just played a factor in that.

Hunter: I'll always say this, I love Denman Heard to death, but Denman Heard's background was not necessarily in automotive and tire products, and that was Michael's bailiwick. I was in Houston and I got a phone call, and the great ironic tragedy of it is he's a fellow that I used to play baseball against in high school then went to a rival high school. He and his wife were returning home from her birthday party and a family in Temple, Texas when they suffered your classic Firestone wilderness tire tread separation, OEM tires on a Ford vehicle.

Justin: Fast forward, Firestone for people that don't know.

Hunter: Firestone, I apologize. I know some of the viewers look at me-- It reminds you how old you are when a lot of people look at you with a blank face about Ford Firestone, but that was one of the great- [crosstalk]

Justin: You were on the end of it though to be fair.

Hunter: Yes, I was. It was one of the great historical torts, but I had that case and I didn't have a ton of leadership on how to work it up. Roger, like I said, was with Michael then and it was very helpful, but it really forced me to grab myself by the bootstraps and just invest myself. It's hard to explain because it sounds like stories that you tell everybody, "Oh, you know back when I walked to school barefoot, uphill both ways in the snow," but it's true.

I was up at the office until 2:00 AM every day. I was back by 6:00. There were plenty of times where I snuck in and slept on Denman's couch just trying to learn about vehicles and tires and I owed it to that family. Back then, they had formed a statewide MDL. They had federal MDLs, but it was a brand new concept back in the early 2000s. They became the gatekeeper for these Ford Firestone MDLs. They had this draconian list of things that you had to do to be able to get out of the MDL to be able to go to your trial court and try the case.

I was proud to say that, post formation the MDL, that case was the very first case that checked all the boxes and got sent to a trial court. I remember one of the nicer Ford lawyers. He was one of the national guys [unintelligible 00:16:19] 9 or 10 different Ford lawyers from four different firms working on it. He called me and said, "I just want to congratulate you. I can tell you that there have been conference calls that you had been called every name in the book and we have done everything we can to prevent you from being able to go to trial. I hope you go kick their ass."

[laughter]

Justin: Where was the MDL at?

Hunter: The MDL was actually in Montgomery County, our region. The region for our area my case was pending in Orange, Texas. It was the actual MDL [unintelligible 00:16:51] in Montgomery County in Conroe.

Justin: Was that Barahona?

Hunter: Jeffrey Harden.

Justin: That was the first in the Ford wars, right?

Hunter: That was the first for me. Now, Michael had a long history with Donna Bailey. Michael and [unintelligible 00:17:06]. They had definitely unturned the stones and done the discovery in their own rights...