All the Awards

Of all the awards bearing Laura Tamez’s name, one is especially meaningful to her: the Rachel Ambler Empowerment award, given by the Texas Trial Lawyers Association Women’s Caucus, and named for an Odessa personal injury attorney and close friend of Tamez’s who died in a car accident during a 2022 dust storm.

The award recognizes a Texas attorney who carries on Ambler’s commitment to supporting women in the legal profession. “Rachel was a warrior of justice,” Tamez says. “She was an absolute badass—she mentored so many men and women, and she would talk to you forever about how to handle an 18-wheeler case or a death case. … She was a great friend.”

A partner at The Herrera Law Firm, Tamez recalls the dearth of female mentors when she was starting out. “I had mentors,” she says, “but many were men. Finding mentors in plaintiff’s personal injury trial law who were women was challenging.”

Jim Perdue Jr., former president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, feels the award’s first recipient was well-chosen. “Laura’s entire career has been a model for women and empowering women attorneys,” Perdue says. “In the specialty of plaintiff’s personal injury, it’s even more challenging to find lawyers like her.”

Tamez says it was humbling to be the first recipient of the award. It is far from lonely on Tamez’s shelf. Others include the Norma Martinez Lozano Women’s Leadership Award, Don Bowen Distinguished Service Award, Michael Gallagher Legislative Advocacy Award, Mexican Bar Association of San Antonio’s Legal Profession Award, and the Pat Maloney Sr. Courage Award.

“Jurors are actually the voice of the community. That’s where rules are enforced.” — Laura Tamez

Tamez grew up in a middle-class family in racially diverse Brownsville. She originally planned on a career in medicine, but an experience during her undergraduate years at Texas A&M diverted her career path to law. In a class she read the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s lawsuit against UT and A&M alleging discrimination in admissions, and Tamez had a revelation about becoming a civil rights lawyer.

“It changed my path,” she says. Tamez got involved with Chicano student organization MEChA, which pushed for an ethnic studies program, led grape boycotts for farmworkers, and confronted conservatism at A&M.

“Growing up, I had never heard the term ‘Hispanic’ or ‘minority;’ at the time it was 90% or more in my border town. My family was very ethnically diverse. My parents didn’t raise me to see color, they raised me to see politics. … I thought justice could be had at the voting booth, and it is, right? But I didn’t realize, because I’d never been to court, how jurors are actually the voice of the community. That’s where rules are enforced.”

Tamez says she has a special affinity for the injured blue-collar workers she often represents. “My cousins grew up on ‘the other side of the tracks’ in Brownsville. They were some of the people who built Texas at low wages. … That is truly my passion: representing these workers.”

After graduating from St. Mary’s School of Law in 1995, she joined the Herrera firm. In 2012, as the first Latina president of the San Antonio Trial Lawyers Association, she received the Norma Martinez Lozano Leadership Award from the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. SATLA also named her the first female recipient of the association’s Pat Maloney Sr. Courage Award in 2016 for her work representing injured laborers throughout Texas.

The 2022 Gallagher award honors Tamez’s work as vice president of legislative affairs of the TTLA on Texas House Bill 19, which modified the procedural provisions when commercial vehicle owners and their drivers are sued. During the pandemic, the TTLA worked with stakeholders and legislators to create a more balanced bill, Tamez says. Thanks in large part to her efforts, Perdue says, “We achieved a host of amendments to moderate that legislation [from] the extreme form it was introduced in.”

The Bowen award, which Tamez received in 2023, honors her civic as well as legal engagement. “One of my goals for the next generation of lawyers is to [help them] become politically engaged,” she says. “And not just teaching the next generation to be leaders, but actually collaborating with them. I will invite young lawyers not just to watch me but to come try a case with me, make opening, challenge them. Inviting them to the legislative process, seeing how the sausage is made.” Says Perdue, “I don’t think we have any more awards to give [her] except a Lifetime Achievement Award, but Laura’s way too young for that.”