738 S. Highway 6, Suite 180, Houston, TX 77079
281-347-3247
Sue West Personal Journey to Elite Personal Injury Attorney
Sue West owner of the West Law Office, PLLC. did not follow a traditional, straight-line path on her journey to becoming a recognized and successful personal injury attorney. She has helped her clients obtain significant awards for financial damages imposed upon them wrongfully by others ranging from individuals to corporations.
With strong encouragement from her husband and while armed with extraordinary experience as a legal assistant for a major law firm, which is exactly what she has accomplished for herself, her family, and the families of those she has represented in a brutal, sometimes unforgiving world of personal injury law.
As a child, her family was poor and moved around often, so a college degree was not an apparent part of her future. They moved to Texas and lived in Austin, San Antonio, and Rosenberg where she eventually met and married her husband in 1980. Her and her husband then settled in Katy in 1984 which has been their home for 40 years.
She earned a degree from the University of Houston in 1994 where she graduated with honors and began working for a major Houston Personal Injury Law Firm working as a legal assistant. That is where she learned the ropes of an industry so often defined by human tragedy. She later followed her passion, which led to a Law Degree from South Texas College of Law in 2001 acknowledging that it was her husband who helped make it possible.
As a legal assistant she worked directly with clients interacting with their seasoned attorneys. “I saw and interviewed so many people whose lives were gravely harmed in many ways. When I understood there was a real path to help them earn compensation for the damages, I knew the next step was earning that law degree.”
For the next decade or so as an attorney at the law firm, she became a driving force in helping clients achieve genuine justice for the damages they suffered. “Dollar bills don’t always undo all the damage that has been inflicted, but it is an essential part of my clients’ ability to put the past behind them and pursue their own futures once again,” she said.
After an extensive and successful career at the Houston firm, she, and her husband (who was also an investigator at the law firm) knew that the time had come for her to “branch out and establish my own practice,” West said
The life she has lived helped change her path and produced an incredible legal career of a now a Solo Practitioner Attorney at The West Law Office, PLLC., which she founded in 2012.
It started with an office set-up in her home. It quickly grew to a minimal remote office that gave the appearance of a business office but was strictly used for client meetings.
As the number of clients enjoying successful recoveries grew, so did the expansion to a full-time office located in the 1-10 and Highway 6 area. With the growing financial success gained for clients, the law practice began to reap the benefits.
The practice remains a solo practice, but the team of legal assistants and vital support staff has expanded without negatively affecting the all-important interaction between the firm’s clients and their “personal” lawyer.
“Almost 90% of our cases now come from referrals by former clients. Interestingly, former clients do move, and those referrals often now include clients who now live in other states ranging from California to Florida and in between,” West says. “Most of our practice is in the region but if our former clients have friends or family that need help, our goal is to keep helping.”
The mere name of “personal injury” is wide open to so many potential cases. “From vicious dog bites to traffic accidents to slip and falls at retail establishments there is an incredible range of ways that cause to harm people wrongfully, harm to innocent individuals is the common denominator,” she said.
“We have a set of core values that are at the heart and soul especially of a smaller law firm such as mine,” she said. “Integrity, compassion, empathy, and honesty are more than just words to us.”
“We never lose our focus on the fact that we are representing real people who have been injured through no fault of their own. We have a high professional due diligence and ethical burden to be completely candid with our clients about the potential for successful financial recovery, we are absolutely driven personally by our commitment to them as individuals who have suffered damage and need help,” she added.
“Our now decades of experience in the industry having served thousands of clients gives us unique skills to accurately and quickly evaluate and merge factual issues of the circumstances with legal precedents that exist for the prospects of recovery,” West added.
“We don’t sugar coat any aspect of our analysis with clients. If we are either positive about recovery for our clients or if the road ahead looks difficult, our first job is to be 100% candid with the client,” she said.
West notes her own life story of personal challenges has been a motivating force to try to be a positive and helpful influence beyond just the parameters of pure law for her clients who “through no fault of their own have suffered. I have had so much help and support along my path that everyone that works with my law firm is highly motivated to do the best we can do for our clients.”
Sue West is a member of the Texas Women Lawyers, the State Bar of Texas, the Houston Bar Association, Association of Women Attorneys and National Association of Professional Women.
She has an unwavering determination and passion to help people become all that they can be and will continue to fight for those who have been wronged. Helping others is a mission she feels she has been called to do, that she takes very seriously.
By: Katy News Business Reporter