Sean McCarthy

Sean McCarthy brings something to Williams Hart & Boundas that most Houston injury lawyers cannot claim: five years as an active-duty Air Force officer and a litigation background spanning both injury law and high-stakes commercial disputes. Clients describe the partner first as a trusted adviser, someone who listens before offering carefully reasoned solutions, but his verdict sheet shows a lawyer willing to take a case all the way when the other side refuses to pay.

His jury results include $15 million against the driver of a company vehicle who struck a pedestrian in a crosswalk and $13 million against multiple defendants after a train collided with a car, killing one person and seriously injuring two others. He has also won $500,000 for a client left with permanent nerve damage after a botched dishwasher repair and $360,000 for a second-degree burn caused by a defective oven, evidence that he treats smaller injury cases seriously, not just headline ones. On the settlement side, he secured $25 million for a construction company in a pipeline contract dispute and $18.5 million for an injured individual. TopVerdict.com ranked one of his results the number one residential premises liability jury verdict in Harris County for 2025.

Beyond injury work, McCarthy leads the firm’s insurance litigation docket, representing policyholders and beneficiaries whose medical, property or life insurance claims were wrongly denied or underpaid. His commercial background covers international trade treaty issues, oil and gas deals, fraud, fiduciary duty and coverage disputes, and he has argued, and won, before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That range means he understands from the inside how corporate defendants and their insurers actually value claims.

Born in San Antonio and raised in Spring, Texas, McCarthy was appointed to the United States Air Force Academy, graduated in 2000 with a degree in political science, and served five years as a commissioned officer before returning to Houston. He earned his law degree from the University of Houston Law Center in 2008, where he edited the Houston Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. He is licensed in Texas, in all four Texas federal district courts, and before the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits, and he was named a Texas Rising Star from 2014 through 2018 and to the Texas Super Lawyers list from 2020 through 2026.

Call McCarthy for truck and commercial vehicle crashes, workplace injuries, premises liability cases, and any injury claim tangled up with an insurance company that will not pay what it owes. The pairing of trial-tested injury work with genuine insurance coverage expertise is rare, and it is his signature. The firm offers free consultations and charges nothing unless it wins.