Legal Malpractice

David W. Shuford, principal at Shuford Law Firm, attended Southern Methodist University where he played football on the 1966 SWC Championship team and graduated with a B.B.A. (major in economics) in 1967. After graduation, he was a coach at SMU. While coaching, he attended law school at SMU where he was a member of the Law Review. After graduation in 1970, Shuford joined the law firm of Rain, Harrell, Emery, Young & Doke. In 1973, he joined the firm of Hewett, Johnson, Swanson & Barbee which he left in 1976 to form his own firm. Shuford concentrates his practice in representing plaintiffs in professional malpractice cases against both lawyers and accountants. He accepts a limited number of major cases in which the professional has breached his duty to properly and competently represent his client

Reared in Lubbock, the oldest son of two college professors, Doug Perrin graduated from law school at Texas Tech in 1977. He practiced law in Roswell, New Mexico (with experience in a wide variety of legal matters) until 1990, when he helped open the Dallas office of what was then the Brown Maroney firm. In 1994, he opened his solo practice emphasizing the representation of plaintiffs in medical and legal malpractice cases. He is now a member of the Perrin Law Firm, practicing in Texas and New Mexico. Doug's youngest, shorter brother, Mark Perrin is his partner. Another brother, Tim Perrin, is a Professor of Law and Vice Dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law. Lawyers occupy a very special vital role in American society. Abraham Lincoln once famously remarked that being a lawyer provides one a superior opportunity to become a good man. Doug believes lawyers owe a great responsibility to society in return for the great power vested in us, and we all need to be reminded that ours is a profession, not a mercantile industry. The Perrin Law Firm tries to make the world a little better and a little more fair in our little corner of it.

Jim Pennington is the founder of the law offices of James E. Pennington, P.C. in Dallas, Texas. Legal malpractice is the focus of his law practice. He limits his practice, almost exclusively, to representing plaintiffs in legal malpractice cases, which often involve related claims such as breach of fiduciary duty, fee disputes, etc. He is AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell. Jim received his J.D. from S.M.U. in 1986. He began his law career at a large Dallas law firm, working primarily on commercial litigation and insurance defense matters. Later, he worked at Misko, Howie & Sweeney, where he represented plaintiffs in personal injury cases (he was previously board certified in personal injury trial law). In 1993, Jim opened his own law practice, and a few years later he began representing clients in legal malpractice claims. He has tried several legal malpractice cases to verdict, and authored/lectured on various legal malpractice topics.

Darrell L. Keith, a plaintiff's trial attorney for almost 38 years, is the founder of the Keith Law Firm, P.C. in Fort Worth, Texas. His focus areas of practice include legal, medical and professional malpractice, personal injury and civil law litigation in state and federal courts. Keith received his B.A. from Baylor University and his J.D. from Baylor Law School. He is included in the The Best Lawyers in America list (1993-2008), the Texas Super Lawyers list (2003-2008) and Texas Lawyer named him the ¿Best Plaintiff¿s Lawyer in Fort Worth.¿ A prolific writer and frequent speaker, he has authored numerous articles on legal and medical malpractice and civil trial law topics. He is an adjunct faculty lecturer in trial advocacy courses at Baylor Law School. Through The Keith Foundation, he has endowed a law and medicine professorship and scholarship and financially contributed to other programs at Baylor Law School and Baylor University

Charles ¿Chuck¿ Herring, Jr. is a partner in Herring & Irwin, L.L.P. in Austin. His practice focuses on the ¿law of lawyering,¿ representing clients on both sides of the legal malpractice and grievance dockets. He is board certified in Civil Trial Law, served two terms on the Texas Supreme Court¿s Advisory Committee and was appointed by the court to chair the Statewide Task Force on Sanctions. Herring received a Presidential Citation from the State Bar of Texas for his service as Chair of the Committee on the Prevention of Legal Malpractice and Grievances, and received the First Annual Professionalism Award from the Texas Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism and the Travis County Bar Association. He is the author of Texas Legal Malpractice and Lawyer Discipline and co-author of the Handbook on Texas Discovery Practice. He has taught, lectured and written many articles on legal malpractice and legal ethics. Herring is an honors graduate of the University of Texas School of Law.