Sam A. Maida, Jr.

Everything that matters. Texas Bar No. 00787950 resolves to the State Bar of Texas member directory, which shows licence status, the date of first admission — 1993 — and any public disciplinary history. His law school, South Texas College of Law, appears on the same records. Those are the facts a client can check in about a minute, and they are the reason this page leads with a number rather than with adjectives. Any firm that will not give you a bar number to look up has told you something worth knowing.

Because there genuinely is one, and confusing them would be easy. A different Texas attorney named Sam Maida was admitted in 1970 and practises at a different address. Search engines and directories do not always distinguish between them, and a profile that appears to be about this attorney may not be. The bar number is the identifier that separates them without argument — 00787950 for the founder of this firm — which is precisely why it appears on every page rather than being left implied.

It tells you the length of the public record you can inspect, and the fact that the firm and the practice began in the same year. It does not tell you what will happen in your case, and no honest page should suggest that it does. Length of practice is a fact about the past; outcomes depend on liability, the medical evidence, the insurance available and your own share of responsibility under § 33.001. What experience genuinely buys is familiarity with the Harris County courts, the local defence bar and the insurers who operate in this market.

Texas personal injury and wrongful death work — vehicle collisions of every kind, commercial truck and bus crashes, workplace and industrial injuries, maritime claims out of the Ship Channel and the Gulf, defective products, and fatal accidents. As Owner and Managing Attorney he oversees the firm's files alongside carrying his own. What the firm does not do is criminal defence, family law or business litigation, and being told a matter falls outside the practice is more useful than being taken on by someone learning it.

Ask, and get a name. This is a three-attorney firm rather than a volume operation, so the attorney you meet is generally the attorney on your file — but you are entitled to hear that confirmed rather than assumed, at this firm or any other. Bernard G. Johnson III leads the litigation department and is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law; Gabriel de Vega is the senior litigation attorney. Which of the three is best placed depends on the type of case.

One office, at 8313 Southwest Fwy Ste 102, Houston, TX 77074, open Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 17:00. Cases come from across the Houston metro — Harris County principally, plus Baytown, Galveston, Katy, Pasadena, Sugar Land and The Woodlands — all served from that office rather than through branch addresses. Matters are ordinarily filed in Harris County at 201 Caroline Street, though a claim arising on the western edge of the metro may belong in Fort Bend or Waller County.

Before the evidence expires, which is much earlier than the legal deadline. Texas allows two years from accrual under § 16.003(a), but camera footage near a crash scene is routinely overwritten within days, vehicles are repaired or scrapped, and a claim involving a City of Houston, Harris County or METRO vehicle requires written notice within six months under § 101.101. An early conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing; what it does is preserve options that quietly close.

Because a credential nobody can check is not a credential. Any firm can describe itself as experienced or dedicated. Very few publish the identifiers that let a prospective client confirm licence status, admission date and disciplinary history against the State Bar's own record. Publishing them also solves the namesake problem described above, and it sets the standard this firm asks clients to apply to everyone they consider — including us.

It is free and carries no obligation. The purpose is to understand what happened, what the injuries are, and whether there is a claim worth pursuing — including saying so when there is not. Nothing is signed at a first conversation. If the firm takes the matter on, you receive a written fee agreement setting out the contingency percentage and how case expenses are treated before anything else happens.

On the checkable things first. Bar number and licence status. Whether anyone on the file holds board certification from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and in what field. Who handles the case day to day. Whether the fee agreement is provided in writing before signing. Then, once two or three firms clear that bar, reviews become useful for the thing that actually differs between them — how it feels to be a client. Using reviews as the first filter rather than the last is how people end up with well-marketed firms rather than well-suited ones.