For small town lawyers, reputation is the whole game

You left a statewide firm to open a one-man shop in Grapeland, Texas, population 1,400. Most lawyers do that move in reverse. 

Honestly, most people thought I was crazy for leaving a huge injury law firm with a great salary and benefits to open up shop in such a small town. The polite version was "that's a bold move." 

The concern from the outside was always the same: you're leaving volume, infrastructure and a steady paycheck for a town most people in Texas have never heard of. But the move made sense to me even when it didn't make sense to anyone else, partly because it involved my heart, my gut and my mind all telling me to do the same thing. 

People weren't necessarily wrong about the challenges, but they underestimated what happens when you know your market that well.

I assume one of the biggest challenges is attracting clients. How do you build a sustainable practice when the population is small and cases aren't walking in off a busy street?

You build it the same way any small-town business survives—by being someone people trust enough to call and someone they feel comfortable recommending to their neighbor. In a market like Grapeland, word travels fast in both directions. If you do right by a client, their whole church knows about it. If you don't, same result.

The geography also works differently than people assume. I cover Anderson County, Houston County and the surrounding area, which includes a lot of rural highway miles and lots of farm-to-market roads where serious crashes happen regularly. The cases are there. They just don't walk past a downtown office window.

In fact, I think it is a big misconception that attorneys need to have their office ‘in town’—meaning on or near a courthouse square. I built my office on a major thoroughfare situated close to the middle of the county seat of two counties, not just one town. That decision allowed me to focus my practice on both Anderson County and Houston County instead of limiting myself to one courthouse square. 

Doesn’t that limit your interaction with court staff and judges? 

The best piece of advice I’ve ever gotten as an attorney is to know your courthouse. Not just the rules—the people, the culture, the judges, the way cases actually move through the system. 

When I first came home to East Texas in 2019, I strategically took any legal work I could get to get me in the courthouse: court appointments on criminal cases, CPS cases, ad litem appointments, probate—whatever put me in front of the judges and court staff.

Speaking of local knowledge, how does practicing in a small community, where you’re going to run into past clients and past defendants again, change how you practice?

I think it makes you a better lawyer. When you know you'll be standing behind someone at the feed store at any point during or after the case, you handle things differently. There's no such thing as a transactional relationship in a small town.

Knowing we're going to encounter past clients and defendants in the community also changes how I think about the other side. I'm not trying to destroy anyone—I'm trying to get a fair result for my client, and most of the time via the defendant's insurance company rather than their own bank account. Most of the people I litigate against have to live here, too. That doesn't mean I pull punches when my client deserves a fight, but it does mean I approach every case knowing that reputations matter, relationships matter and you earn trust over decades, not deals.

Does that also shape the type of cases you take on? 

Part of what I’m trying to do is make sure people in rural East Texas have access to the same quality of representation that someone in a big city, like Dallas or Houston, takes for granted. 

A lot of people in this part of the state get hurt and either don’t know their rights or assume they can’t afford good counsel. We’re trying to close that gap—not just take cases, but educate and advocate for people who deserve a fair fight.

That being said, I don't take cases where I don't believe my client. I only represent people I can put my arm around in the courtroom and tell a jury, with complete honesty, that this is a good person who was harmed by someone else's negligence. 

That selectivity isn't just about ethics—it's about survival as a solo. You can't afford to carry a weak case or client for years, particularly if it prevents you from providing your stronger clients the attention they deserve because you're spread too thin.

Many clients we represent aren’t people who are going to write a retainer check. By fronting all case expenses and promising no fees or expenses unless we recover, clients know I have real skin in the game—not just professionally, but financially. That alignment of interests matters, especially in a community where people can tell the difference between a lawyer who’s invested in them and one who isn’t.

Bonus Round: Tell me a little bit about the famous “Doyle Boil.”

Each year, I host a crawfish boil to raise money for the Doyle Marshall Memorial Scholarship Fund. I started it in 2014 to honor my great-grandfather, Doyle Marshall, who was one of the finest men I’ve ever known—a man who lived his entire life on crutches due to polio but still became one of Texas’s first master plumbers, all while building strong businesses, farms, relationships and communities.

What makes this scholarship different is the kind of student we recognize. Our scholarship targets students a little further down the class ranking who are decent, kind, generous, respectful and good-hearted, often from smaller schools in the area. This year, we’re awarding $6,000 in scholarships.

The scholarship keeps my great-grandfather's name and values alive. Separately, through the firm, we give away bicycles and basketballs to local kids each Christmas. Both reflect what I believe a small-town law practice should be about: serving people, investing in the community and using whatever success you have to help others move forward.

(Image courtesy Chris Sbrusch)

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