Our approach to a lawsuit can be summed up in two words: trial ready.
We understand the realty of civil litigation: most suits are settled. Certainly, there are many cases that should be settled, instances in which a settlement is fair to all parties and the most cost-effective for our client. But even in those cases, negotiations can break down. New facts may come to light and an evaluation can change in an instant. Your attorneys must be able to shift their preparations from settlement to trial just as quickly.
We defend a broad range of businesses - from restaurants to transportation to retail to manufacturing - in a broad range of business litigation. Our choice not to specialize in any one aspect of a business's legal issues allows us to be more responsive to our clients.
But it's how we do business that separates us from other defense and business litigation firms. We provide personal service and establish personal relationships with our clients. When they bring a lawsuit to our firm, they know the people who will work on their case. Throughout the litigation process, our clients have access to their legal team by phone, by email, or in person.
We don't hire investigators to do witness interviews or site inspections - we do them ourselves. We accompany experts to inspections, and we go to the site of accidents, and we interview witnesses in person to gauge their reactions. That first-hand experience makes us better able to represent our clients.
Because, ultimately, it's not just your case. It's your money. And we treat your money as frugally as our own.
The road to the formation of Karel & Hicks begins in Chicago, weaves through Korea, veers west to Hobbs, New Mexico, and Lubbock, Texas, south to Houston, and finally ends in Dallas, Texas, in the winter of 2003.
James W. Karel grew up in and around the south side of Chicago. In 1974, he was commissioned in the U.S. Army, becoming a company commander as a first lieutenant, a member of the elite Army Rangers, and attaining the rank of captain. He got his first taste of legal work as a defacto prosecutor in the Army's legal proceedings against soldiers accused of various offenses. Despite having no legal training, Karel was so successful that he continued the role for three years, until serving in Korea.
After leaving the Army in 1979, Karel worked in various jobs before pursuing a law degree at the University of Texas beginning in 1982. He received his license in 1986 and moved to Houston, where he took his first job as an attorney.
During the same period, Jana Hicks Taylor and her family moved from Odessa, Texas, to Hobbs, New Mexico, where Hicks attended school. In 1992, she entered Texas Tech University and, after receiving a bachelor's degree in 1995, was accepted into Tech's School of Law. Upon getting her law license, Hicks moved to Dallas and began practicing in 1999.
By that time, Karel had opened his own law firm in Houston with four other partners, but in 2002, he moved to Dallas and opened a new firm. Among his first hires was Hicks Taylor, whom he had met in another case.
In 2008, Jana Hicks Taylor became a partner in the firm, and the firm name changed from Karel & Associates to Karel & Hicks.
The territory in which Karel & Hicks practices is easily defined: wherever our clients need us.
While many of our cases are in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, Karel & Hicks works in courthouses throughout Texas, in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, east across the Mississippi River, as far north as Indiana, and west to California. Karel & Hicks practices regularly in county and state district courts, and our attorneys are admitted in all four of Texas's federal court districts.
Our clients are just as diversely located - Texas, Ohio, Minnesota, Georgia, Oklahoma, Maryland, and New York. We've represented restaurants and beverage makers, mobile home builders and armored couriers, home improvement stores and plumbing fixture manufacturers, banks and retailers and trucking companies.