W Mark Lanier

Education

After graduating from Coronado High School in Lubbock, Texas, Lanier attended Texas Tech University and David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee; Lanier then attended the Texas Tech University School of Law, completing his J.D. in 1984. Lanier was selected as their distinguished alumnus for 2005. Lanier also serves on the law school's Foundation Board.

Honors

In 2012, Lanier received the Clarence Darrow Award. In 2015, Lanier was named 2015 Trial Lawyer of the Year by The National Trial Lawyers and The Trial Lawyer magazine. In 2017, Lanier was selected to the National Trial Lawyer’s Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame.

In 2015, Lanier received honorary degrees from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, St. John's University in New York.

In February 2016, Lanier received the Texas Tech University 2016 distinguished alumni award, their highest alumni honor.

Personal life

Lanier is married to Becky (Smith) and they have five children. Lanier and his wife have contributed to building the Mark and Becky Lanier Professional Development Center at the Texas Tech University School of Law.

Legal career

Lanier began his legal career working in Houston for Fulbright & Jaworski in June 1984. Lanier worked in the appellate and trial divisions through August 1989. In 1989, Lanier began working for Ernest Cannon and Associates, a small plaintiffs trial practice firm in Houston. Lanier launched his own firm with Bill Vernon in June 1990.

Lanier Law Firm expanded from a two-person firm into one with 65 lawyers in four cities: New York, Houston, Palo Alto and Los Angeles.

Lanier's firm specializes in civil trial work, for cases ranging from personal injuries to corporate disputes and asset recovery. Verdicts have included $480 million in a business fraud case (Rubicon v. Amoco), $118 million in an asbestos case (Aaron v. Carborundum) and $253 million in the first Vioxx verdict in America (Ernst v. Merck). Among his most recent verdicts is a $56.2 million verdict against Caterpillar, Inc. on behalf of a crippled driver of a Caterpillar Tractor Scraper.

In 1998 and 2006, The National Law Journal recognized Lanier as one of nation's top trial attorneys, and in 2006, The National Law Journal called him one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. The journal also named him among the country's 40 top attorneys under the age of 40.

He was named by The American Lawyer magazine as one of the top 45 attorneys in the nation under the age of 45. In a Texas survey of legal peers published by Texas Monthly magazine, Lanier was selected a "Texas Super Lawyer" from 2003 to 2014.

In 2010, The National Law Journal selected Lanier as one of decade's 40 most influential lawyers. The Texas Lawyer called Lanier one of the twenty-five greatest attorneys of the past twenty-five years. Lanier was named to the Top 100 and Top 10 lists for Texas Super Lawyer.

In 2011, Lanier was named to The Trial Lawyer Magazine’s America’s 100 most influential trial Lawyers of the year. He was also named to the Top 100 lists for Texas Super Lawyer.

In 2012, Lanier appeared on the 2012 Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business List. He received recognition as one of their “Leaders in Their Field” based on his work in product liability and mass tort cases. In October 2012, Mr. Lanier was awarded the coveted Clarence Darrow Award. Lanier was named to the Top 10 and Top 100 lists for Texas Super Lawyer.

In 2015, Lanier was named the 2015 Trial Lawyer of the Year by The National Trial Lawyers and The Trial Lawyer magazine. The Lanier Law Firm won the Texas Lawyer 2015 Litigation Departments of the Year. Lanier received the Texas Bar Foundation with the 2015 Ronald D. Sechrest Outstanding Trial Lawyer Award. U.S. News and World Report’s Best Lawyers recognize Lanier by naming him to their Best Lawyers list for 2015. Lanier was recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Association for Justice (AAJ) at the organization’s annual convention. Lanier was also awarded the Ronald D. Secrest Outstanding Trial Lawyer Award in 2015. The National Law Journal named Lanier a litigation trailblazer for his use of technology in court cases.

In December 2016 Lanier earned a $1 billion combined jury verdict in a product liability case over defective hip implants against DePuy Orthopaedics Inc, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

Some of Lanier's trials have been carried on the Court TV website and have been the subject of articles and books. Cliff Atkinson's book, Beyond Bullet Points describes in Chapter 1 the approach used by Lanier in the Ernst trial, which Fortune magazine described as "frighteningly powerful". Legal write-ups reference Lanier's usage of multimedia in his presentations.

Lanier appears in the book Texas Justice: The Legacy of Historical Courthouses for his accomplishments in the Rubicon trial.

In 2011, Lanier was the principal subject of the book, All The Justice Money Can Buy, by ex-NPR reporter Snigdha Prakash. Prakash was embedded in the Lanier trial team for the Vioxx trial of Lanier in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Lanier is the founder of the Christian Trial Lawyers Association, a nonprofit organization whose goal is to create a network of principled attorneys to minister to others through civic-minded endeavors.

Religious Education

Lanier teaches regular classes at Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston, Texas on Biblical Literacy that are also posted on the Internet in video, audio, and written formats. Lanier and his family built the Lanier Theological Library, one of the world's largest private religious studies library open for public usage. The library houses nearly 100,000 volumes in areas of Biblical Studies, Judaic Studies, Church History, Greek and Latin Classical Studies, Linguistics, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, including the collections of a number of now deceased scholars. The library has been featured on HGTV along with a replica 6th century chapel built onsite.

Lanier has published two books focused on integrating Christian faith into daily life, Christianity on Trial: A Lawyer Examines the Christian Faith (2014) and Psalms For Living (2016)