Guest Contributor

Michael Townes Watson

Michael Townes Watson lives in the West Greenwich Village area of New York City, with his wife and two sons, where he writes and lectures about civil justice issues. He was a 1976 Graduate, with high honors, of the University of Texas School of Law, where he was installed as a member of the Order of the Coif, for academic excellence. As a law student, he taught legal research and writing to freshlaw students; wrote for the American Journal of Criminal Law; and taught Legal Procedure to visiting Fulbright International Scholars. He was briefing attorney to the Honorable U. S. District Judge, William S. Sessions. He was a trial lawyer in Texas for twenty-eight years, engaged for the greatest part of that time as a plaintiff’s medical malpractice lawyer. Beginning in 2003, he began teaching and writing, and has written four editions of Texas Civil Evidence (Knowles, ed. 2003-2007). He is the author of America’s Tunnel Vision—How Insurance Companies Propaganda Is Corrupting Medicine and Law (Horatio Press 2006), and has been a guest commentator on civil justice issues and health safety issues on radio and television programs around the country. In 2003 he also began serving as a mediator for the resolution of medical malpractice suits, as well as teaching as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, and currently serves there as Practitioner in Residence, teaching a seminar and lecturing to the faculty and students on civil justice reform.

While a trial lawyer in Texas, he was a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, a national society of lawyers from both plaintiff and defense practices. The stated mission of that body is the “preservation of the Seventh Amendment right to trial by jury.” He was a member of that organization’s Fort Worth, Texas Chapter, the National Chapter (where he served on the Board of Directors), and the Texas Chapter, known as Tex-Abota (for which he served as Secretary/Treasurer). He was also was a member and on the Board of Directors of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and served for one term as the President of the Tarrant County Trial Lawyers, a group of lawyers dedicated to the representation of individuals harmed by the practices of business and insurance companies. He was a frequent lecturer and presenter for continuing education courses sponsored by the Fort Worth Paralegal Association, the Tarrant County Bar Association and the Texas Bar Association and the Texas Trial Lawyers’ Association. He is the current owner of Horatio Press, founded to disseminate information pertaining to the preservation of the justice system.

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