Joe Jamail

oe Jamail, called “the King of Torts” by Time and Newsweek, is one of the most influential lawyers in the United States. Throughout his legal career, Joe has taken on some of the nation’s biggest corporations. His representation on behalf of Pennzoil, resulting in a $11.12 billion verdict against Texaco in 1985, is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest civil damages award in history. His legal efforts have also caused the recall of three products — the Remington 600, the Honda All-Terrain Three Wheeler and the prescription drug Parlodel.

Joe is also considered the greatest supporter of the University of Texas law school, to which he has contributed a significant amount of time and money. Along with his wife Lee, he is one of the top donors to the University in general. Most recently, the Jamails donated $1 million to help establish 33 scholarships for minority students through the Texas Exes. In October 2003, Eakin Publications published Joe’s autobiography Lawyer: My Trials and Jubilations. The book is moving and detailed account of Joe’s advocacy and triumphs as a lawyer.

Joe is additionally a singular figure in his profession because of all his verdicts for the families of workers and children killed or maimed in accidents not of their own doing. Joe has won all number of accolades, but he still refers to himself as “a sore-back lawyer.” That’s his way of not letting others portray his victories in terms too fancy for his taste. Joe’s many civic and professional contributions reflect this commitment to helping others, including work as a Sustaining Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, a trustee of the UT Law School Foundation, Fellow of the International Academy of Law and Science, member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, Grand Marshall of the Martin Luther King Parade, and Fellow of the American College and International Academy of Trial Lawyers. A former Marine who served in the Pacific during World War II, Joe lived through the Great Depression and witnessed how people treated their neighbors in times of crisis. As he remembers it, his parents were always willing to feed a stranger passing through town looking for work, and their compassionate spirit has remained hard-wired into his quest for justice.