Gabe Vick
8
in fact give the wills away if you have to. When you get
older you can live on probating them.” Later he did a lot
of real estate law, and he owned a title company and,
eventually, that was all he did.”
When and how did Tom Vick decide to build a career
in family practice?
“When Dan Carney and Don Chrestman came over
here and we were forming this partnership,” Vick said,
“Dan had been a prosecutor and Don did transactional
law, and Dad did real estate law, so family law just sort
of fell to me.”
The Family Man
At some point, Vick realized that he derived a great
deal of satisfaction out of practicing family law, at least
he does on “most days,” he said. “There are days when
I’d like to do anything but practice family law. But, it’s
an opportunity to impact people’s lives. In family law,
we’re representing good people at some of the worst
times in their lives. We get to help them piece their lives
back together and make sure their children’s best interests
are served in whatever they’re doing. The idea is to help
them get through that time without destroying all the rela-
tionships that they need to preserve.”
Is there a secret to being a successful family lawyer?
“The secret to the longevity of a family lawyer is that
you have to leave it right here when you go home,” Vick
said. “Because, if you take all these people’s problems as
your own, you won’t sleep at night.”
What’s the biggest challenge in practicing family law?
Without skipping a beat, Vick answered, “Keeping your
sanity. It used to be that the bigges t challenge in being a
part of a small law firm was dealing with the technology.
That was 15 years ago. Now, with my iPad, I have
access to the technology that was only accessible to
the biggest law firms with high dollar I.T. departments.
Technology has certainly leveled the playing field.”
As Bar President, Vick hopes to improve access that
the general public has to attorneys and to make seek-
ing excellent legal counsel more affordable to far more
people through technology, perhaps using something like
Skype.
“As bar president, I’d like to see the technology
in our courtrooms advance so that lower and middle
income Texans could have greater access to the justice
system,” Vick said. “If I’m in this office and I have a
hearing in Breckenridge, as it is now, I have to drive to
Breckenridge, go to the courtroom where I wait my turn,
then participate in the 20-minute-long proceeding, and
then drive back. The client has to pay for all of that time.
But, if I could do that via a Skype-type program, here’s
how it could happen — I could just turn my computer
on and participate in a 20-minute court proceeding. Just
think of the money it would save the client. If we can
bring the cost of that down, it makes the legal/justice
system far more accessible to many more Texans.”
A Most Noteworthy Case
When asked what has been his favorite case so far,
Vick smiles. “Favorite?” He said. “I had a couple that
were noteworthy. One was the YFZ Ranch case.”
The year was 2008 and Vick had been active in the
Family Bar Association for years.
“I’d just come off of being the president,” Vick said. “I
didn’t know all 6,000 Texas attorneys in family law, but I
knew a lot of them,” Vick said. “If somebody called and
said they needed a family law attorney in Lampasas, I’m
sure I could come up with somebody.”
That came in handy in April of 2008, when acting on
the outcry of an alleged teen victim of physical and sexu-
al abuse at the FLDS compound in Schleicher County,
Texas. Child Protective Services and Texas Department
of Public Safety officers entered a compound owned by
the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter
Day Saints. There, they served search and arrest warrants
and carried out court orders designed to protect the chil-
dren of the congregants. Over the course of several days,