I have been practicing law since 1994 and championing the rights of injured workers who were exposed to asbestos and suffered from Mesothelioma, asbestos-related lung cancer, and severe asbestosis since 2001.
Ed Martin
Attorney
I was born in Midland, Texas and grew up there until I left for college at the University of Texas at Austin in the mid-1980s. The youngest of five kids, I grew up in a town where all the neighbors knew each other and often gathered to visit on warm summer evenings when the West Texas desert would cool down before the “swamp” coolers in our homes could catch up from the hot desert daytime heat of summer. It wasn’t uncommon for 110 degree days and 65 degree nights in the Midland desert.
While growing up my parents had a significant influence on my interest in helping people and the law. My dad served in the United States Navy during the Korean War as a Chief Petty Officer after he graduated from college. He then went to law school and moved to Midland in the early 1960s where he “hung out a shingle” and spent the rest of his career practicing Criminal, Family and Civil law. He served as Midland County’s District Attorney for two terms from 1976-1984. I spent many summer days watching my dad’s and his assistants’ trials at the Midland Courthouse. He was a brilliant trial strategist and always made things interesting in court!
When I was sixteen, I opened a Snow Cone Stand “Dude’s Snow Cones” with one of my best friends and used the profits to help pay for my college education. We sold the stand to two high school kids after my partner and I were poised to graduate from college so they could continue the business and hopefully have the same success we had for our educations.
During the late 1980’s, I went to work as a legislative assistant to former Texas Speaker of the House and current State Representative Tom Craddick and worked for other Representatives during the 70th and 71st Legislative Sessions of the Texas Legislature. After I finished law school, I returned for two more sessions as legal counsel to legislators during the 74th and 75th Legislative Sessions.
After my time at the Texas Legislature, I returned to Midland to serve as a law clerk for the US Magistrate in the United States Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas and to help take care of my mom who was disabled from severe Rheumatoid Arthritis, and who became bed-ridden after a hip replacement surgery resulted in an infection.
In 2001, while discussing potential work back at the Texas Legislature with then Dallas (Oak Cliff) State Representative Steve Wolens, he suggested that with the passion and interest I had in helping people, I would be a perfect fit at his law firm, a national pioneer in asbestos litigation, located in Dallas.
Since 2001, I have been traveling all over the United States working with clients who have developed asbestos-related injuries in 49 states including Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Louisiana, Colorado, Arkansas, Virginia, Delaware, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Wyoming, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, Washington, and Pennsylvania. I’ve worked with many of America’s finest who helped build this nation as pipefitters, boilermakers, electricians, insulators, laborers and other union craftsmen. Because my dad served in the Navy, I have a special place for those clients who developed asbestos-related diseases, including Mesothelioma, as a result of their service in the Navy including World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War veterans.
I also play piano.
University of Texas at Austin, Bachelor of Arts in Government and Economics, 1991
South Texas College of Law, Doctor of Jurisprudence, 1994
State Bar of Texas, 1994
American Association for Justice