[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_4″ last=”no” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ class=”” id=””][fusion_imageframe lightbox=”no” lightbox_image=”” style_type=”none” hover_type=”none” bordercolor=”” bordersize=”0px” borderradius=”0″ stylecolor=”” align=”none” link=”” linktarget=”_self” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”down” animation_speed=”0.1″ hide_on_mobile=”no” class=”” id=””] 
[/fusion_imageframe][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”3_4″ last=”yes” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ class=”” id=””][fusion_text]By Janet Elliott
(Sept. 28) – As a lawyer defending General Motors in a product liability case, James B. Sales once drove a Cadillac at a high rate of speed around a wicked curve on Texas Highway 77 near LaGrange to test an injured driver’s theory that brake failure caused the accident.
“At the speed the man had testified to driving, I could keep the Cadillac in the proper lane even though it was a very curved and treacherous piece of highway,” Sales says. When the jury saw video of a similar demonstration, the case was locked up.
Sales cut his teeth as a young litigator defending corporations in products liability cases. He served as “bag carrier and motion arguer” in a six-week trial concerning the 1959 crash of a Braniff flight en route from Houston to Dallas.
The deceased passengers’ families were represented by John Hill, a prominent lawyer who would go on to become attorney general of Texas and chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Hill was testing a new theory involving metal fatigue and other defects in the plane’s design. At the time, courts in only two states, California and New Jersey, had developed product liability through case law.
The Fulbright team lost the Braniff case, but Sales began keeping notes on every product liability case in Texas. By the late 1960s, the Texas Supreme Court had adopted products liability and the litigation exploded. Sales’ notebook became a treatise on product liability law in Texas and he later co-authored a six-volume series on general torts and remedies.
Sales headed the litigation department at Fulbright & Jaworski for 20 years, overseeing its expansion from 80 to 240 attorneys. During that time, he witnessed the transformation of litigation from tort-centered cases to massive commercial cases such as those involving failed energy company deals.
“Those cases involved so much money that it increasingly attracted the people who had been very good for a long time in torts and other things,” says Sales, now of counsel to Norton Rose Fulbright.
As Sales’ legal practice thrived, he wanted to help improve the profession, particularly for low-income Texans who needed help with civil legal matters. Elected as president of the Houston Bar Association in 1980, Sales launched a program to get lawyers to volunteer their time and established the Houston Bar Foundation to help fund legal services.
Sales was elected president of the State Bar of Texas in 1988. He oversaw the adoption of a plan to prohibit improper solicitation of disaster victims and the adoption of a new Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct. From 2004 to 2010 Sales served as chairman of the Texas Access to Justice Commission, which coordinates the statewide delivery of legal services to low-income Texans.
Of all his accomplishments, the one that still brings tears to his eyes is an engraved plate he received in 1995 for establishing the Texas Lawyer Assistance Program, a network of lawyers helping lawyers who are struggling with substance abuse. Initially opposed by some who thought the program would be a way for lawyers to avoid being held accountable for actions that hurt clients, Sales believes the program has helped thousands of lawyers.
“It’s always nice to know the results of a lot of hard work do produce some tangible results,” he says.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]