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James L. (Jim) Ware
Of Counsel
Overview
Jim represents clients in a variety of personal injury claims, mass tort actions, environmental matters, product liability suits, Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) claims, maritime disputes, and other commercial litigation, navigating particularly complex trial work with an acute attention to detail and a comprehensive awareness of all potential risks.
After beginning his legal career in general civil practice, Jim found his niche in courtroom litigation, handling a wide variety of matters in state, federal, and administrative courts for over four decades. He has successfully defended clients in matters ranging from asbestos litigation to landlord-tenant disputes to environmental contamination matters.
Additionally, he has used his well-established skills to represent several large corporations as national counsel, trial counsel, and coordinating counsel in class actions and mass torts. With broad industry insight and extensive experience, Jim regularly lectures at continuing legal education seminars, rehabilitation specialist seminars, and in-house courses for clients.
Notably, Jim was appointed to serve on the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel in Galveston, Texas, in 2017.
Credentials
Education
- The University of Texas School of Law, 1975 (J.D.)
- The University of Texas at Austin, 1972 (B.A.), cum laude
Court Admissions
- U.S. Supreme Court
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Texas
- U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas
- U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas
- Serves as Notice Counsel and on the steering committee for Texas Silica MDL.
- Serves as National Coordinating Counsel for a national brand of respiratory protection products.
- Represents defendants in a rapidly developing area of the law in which sexual trafficking and assaults are alleged and in which hotel owners and operators are sued, now becoming a part of a newly created multi-district litigation in a Texas state court.
- Defends a national grocery chain in cases ranging from wrongful death in a tragic automobile crashing through front doors to falling accidents in stores.
- Functioned as trial counsel in breast implant litigation for nationally recognized materials science company.
- Served as trial counsel and coordinating counsel for warnings defense in welding fume litigation in some of the earliest Texas cases which alleged a variety of complaints including neurological illnesses such as ALS, arc welder’s pneumoconiosis, and Parkinsonism.
- Helped obtain defense verdict in a trial involving the demise of a proposed coal slurry pipeline planned to stretch from Wyoming to Texas.
- Served as lead counsel on behalf of firm clients in environmental clean-up matters including CERCLA and EPA actions involving ground and soil contamination in various sites in the state of Texas as well as personal injury and property damage actions in state court involving asbestos, silica, lead, benzene, formaldehyde, PCBs, and other exposures.
- Successfully represented overriding royalty interest owners seeking payments for royalties and the value of their interests wrongfully taken by the intentional termination of an oil and gas lease for the purpose of washing out the overriding interests.
- Represents parties in construction defect litigation.
- Bay Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, President
- Galveston Island Redevelopment Authority, Chairman
- Lamar Tower Council of Co-Owners, Board of Directors
- Trinity Episcopal Church, School Board
- Galveston Academic Excellence Booster Club, President
- Galveston Railroad Museum, Board of Directors
- Galveston Arts Council, President
- Galveston Citizen’s Committee for Sewer Bonds
- Knights of Momus, Inc., President & Executive Board
- Galveston Artillery Club, President
- State Bar of Texas Board of Legal Specialization, Board Certified, Personal Injury Trial Law
- Martindale-Hubbell, AV Preeminent
- Texas Super Lawyers, 2004-2024
- American Bar Association
- State Bar of Texas, Administration of Rules of Evidence Committee, 2007-2013
- Texas Bar Foundation, Sustaining Life Fellow
- Nominations Committee, 2011-2012, 2012-2013
- Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel
- Defense Research Institute
- Texas Association of Defense Counsel
- Harris County Bar Association
- Galveston County Bar Association
- Litigation Counsel of America, Fellow
- Advisory Board, 2009-2014
- Trial Law Institute
- Diversity Law Institute
- Phi Sigma Alpha Honors Fraternity
- Texas Association of Defense Counsel, Trial Academy Faculty, 2007
- Defense Research Institute, Silica Medicine Seminar, 2006
- HarrisMartin, Texas Asbestos and Silica Seminar, 2006
- HarrisMartin, Silica Seminar, 2003, 2004
- South Texas School of Law, Seminar, 1995
- “It is Time for Texas to Tell the Jury,” Texas Bar Journal, 1991