Shawn Barnett.

Personal approach

I started practicing personal injury law because I wanted to do work that mattered for people who needed an advocate — not for corporations who already had armies of lawyers. After years in the field, that hasn't changed.

What's changed is my understanding of how to deliver on that promise. The personal injury industry has consolidated into volume-driven settlement mills where attorneys carry hundreds of cases at a time, clients become files, and outcomes depend on whatever the insurance company offers. That's not the practice I built. We take fewer cases so the cases we take get real attention.

If you're reading this, you're probably dealing with one of the worst situations of your life — a serious injury, a loss, financial pressure mounting, an insurance company that won't return your calls. My job is to give you clear answers, an honest assessment, and the strategic advocacy that gets you what your case is worth.

Why I focus on two states

Most personal injury attorneys practice in one state. I made a deliberate decision to build a practice covering both Texas and New Mexico — licensed in New Mexico, admitted to federal court in the Western District of Texas, and backed by established Texas co-counsel relationships — and that decision has shaped my entire practice.

The reason: Texas and New Mexico have dramatically different personal injury law. Texas uses modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar rule. New Mexico uses pure comparative negligence. Texas has a 2-year statute of limitations; New Mexico has 3. Texas allows recovery against governmental entities only through the narrow Texas Tort Claims Act; New Mexico has its own Tort Claims Act with completely different procedural requirements including a 90-day notice rule. Damages caps differ. Stacking rules for uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage differ.

For clients with cases that cross the border — accidents in border regions like El Paso/Las Cruces, residents of one state injured in the other, commercial vehicles traveling cross-state — having an attorney who works fluently in both legal systems makes a real difference in outcomes.

From the principal office in Albuquerque, I handle New Mexico cases directly. For Texas cases, I work as managing co-counsel with Jonathan Perez in San Antonio and Jeff Barnett in Austin — three attorneys with complementary geographic reach across both states.

How I think about case selection

We don't take every case that calls us. I want to be straightforward about that because the volume firms will never tell you this: case selection is one of the most important things a personal injury attorney does for clients.

The questions I ask when evaluating a potential case:

• Is there liability? Can we prove someone else was at fault? Texas's 51% bar makes this critical — partial fault disputes can swing cases entirely.
• Are there damages? Both medical damages and the broader harm. We can't make a case bigger than the underlying injury.
• Is there insurance or assets? The most painful conversation in personal injury law is explaining to a catastrophically injured client that the at-fault driver has $30,000 in coverage and nothing else.
• Are we the right firm? Sometimes a case is real but isn't something we handle well. Cases involving family law, criminal issues, or business disputes need different specialists.

If we can't help, we'll tell you that — and often we can refer you to someone who can. That honesty is part of what separates real personal injury practice from churning files for fees.