Parker County Today September 2018 | Page 62

LEGAL EAGLES Michael G. Maloney — Advocating For The Injured and Accused After more than four decades of practicing law, Michael G. Maloney still takes great satisfaction from his work. Beginning his law career in 1974, Maloney passed up a post working alongside legal giant and legendary Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade (the Wade as in Roe Vs. Wade) and opted for a position with a fresh-faced young district attorney in Tarrant County, Tim Curry. “They (the Dallas D.A.’s office) considered me a fit,” Maloney said. “But they didn’t have an opening right then and it was going to be wait of a month or two.” Maloney had just passed the bar exam and didn’t want to wait to begin his law career. “I went ahead and looked in Tarrant County,” Maloney recalled. “They hired me right off. Curry was new to the office, besides, they played country western music in the office. I felt so much more at home there, than in the Dallas office. Of course, I hadn’t gotten my bar results yet, but they put me to work anyway. I stayed for seven years. I never lost a case, there.” The experience and insight he gained from work- ing within a big city criminal prosecution depart- ment has proven to be invaluable later in his career. So has the experience Maloney gleaned from the two law firms he joined following his exit from the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office. One was a traditional law firm and the second was a personal injury law firm. “Norman Maples had offered me a position with his firm,” Maloney said, adding, “I spent a couple of years there and I learned a lot from Norman.” Maloney then went on to join the firm of famed personal injury Attorney Chuck Noteboom located in the Mid-Cities. 60 There, Maloney learned a whole different way to advocate for people who had been injured. Today, Maloney’s firm, established in 1980, is based on the Historic Downtown Square in Weatherford and focuses on Criminal Defense, Felony Drug Charges, Family Law, Divorce and Personal Injury, as well as immigration advice for families and businesses. “I partnered with Chuck Noteboom after I left Norman and then I partnered with Carl Miller and we had an office in Arlington for about a year. And then with George Trimber on 8th Ave. in Fort Worth,” Maloney said. The perception that most personal injury is all about people wanting to win the litigation lottery is a fallacy. “As for medical malpractice,” Maloney said, “I represented a guy who came in. He’d had surgery and he kept going back to the doctor complain- ing about pains and that he was having all kinds of trouble. They told him that it was scar tissue from the surgery. They’d left a surgical tool in his stomach when he had surgery.” A man who nominated Maloney described him as an attorney that “worked his guts out for his clients.” When asked about the description, Maloney laughed and then he said, “I had a profes- sor at Austin College, I played football there, I was a much better ball player than I was a student. He told me one day, ‘Mike, I watch you play ball out there. You’re a really hard worker on the ball field. You put forth tremendous effort out there. My question is, why don’t you apply that to your studies?’ That’s what we do here. We may not be the very smartest, but we’ll work hard for you.” Often, hard work beats brilliance.