John Eddie Williams, Jr.

Few injury lawyers anywhere, let alone in Houston, carry a resume like John Eddie Williams, Jr. The founder of Williams Hart & Boundas has practiced for over 48 years, finished first in his class at Baylor Law School, and has taken more than 100 cases all the way to a jury verdict. For a victim comparing attorneys, that last figure is the one to notice: plenty of lawyers settle everything, while Williams has spent a career actually trying cases against some of the best-funded defendants in America.

His signature result ranks among the largest in U.S. legal history. Williams was one of only five attorneys retained by the State of Texas for its landmark suit against the tobacco industry, litigation that produced a $17.3 billion recovery. In the years since, he has led or co-led some of the country’s biggest mass tort fights: co-lead counsel in the Marlboro Lights class action in Arkansas, a leadership role in the Fen-Phen diet drug litigation against Wyeth, and a leading position against Abbott Laboratories over Depakote birth defects. From asbestos to pharmaceuticals, he has secured multimillion-dollar verdicts for people severely harmed by corporate products, in state and federal courts across the country.

That work continues today. Williams and his firm hold a prominent national role in the Roundup (glyphosate) litigation, where his team has taken hundreds of depositions, tried cases in multiple jurisdictions, and pushed back against settlement proposals he viewed as unfair to class members. He is now also leading litigation against rideshare companies on behalf of sexual assault survivors.

Williams is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. At Baylor, where he earned his law degree in 1978, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Baylor Law Review. Away from the office, he and his wife Sheridan invest heavily in the Houston community they both grew up in, including the Houston Chronicle’s Goodfellows Fund, which provides holiday toys for children in need, and he serves on the boards of the Houston Police Foundation and the Houston Astros.

Williams is the match for cases with national scope or defendants of enormous size: injuries caused by dangerous drugs, pesticides or medical devices, catastrophic harm from plant explosions, and sexual assault claims against rideshare companies. If your claim could become part of, or even lead, a mass tort, few attorneys in Texas have comparable experience running that kind of litigation from the front. The firm handles injury cases on contingency, with free consultations and no fee unless it wins.