522 Texas Bar Journal • June 2007 www.texasbar.com

Profile by Kevin PriestnerPhotos by Carol Junell

ne of Gib Walton’s fondest memories is helping toelect his father as Harris County district attorney.

Though only about six years old at the time of hisdad’s campaigns, Walton remembers riding with his father inthe campaign truck, smiling and waving at voters, and distrib-uting “Dan’s the Man” push cards that included an endorse-ment from Bear Bryant. (Bryant was one of Dan Walton’sfootball coaches at Vanderbilt.) With the help of his youngcampaign strategist, Dan Walton would serve two terms as dis-trict attorney before Gov. John Connally appointed him to thebench as a criminal district judge. The younger Walton, work-ing without Bryant’s endorsement, would be elected presidentof the State Bar of Texas.

Dan Walton’s campaigns for district attorney and service asa judge instilled in his son a fascination with politics and a ded-ication to public service. Over an impressive 30-year career atVinson & Elkins, L.L.P., in Houston, Gib Walton has servedon the boards of directors of organizations ranging from theMethodist Hospital to South Texas College of Law, from theGood Samaritan Foundation to the Alley Theatre, from Brook-wood Community to St. John’s School, from the Cullen Trustfor Health Care to the Texas Appleseed Foundation. Almostinvariably, he has assumed a leadership post, serving as presi-dent of the Houston Bar Association, chair of the Houston BarFoundation, treasurer of the Texas Equal Access to JusticeFoundation, and secretary of the Methodist Hospital board.

On the eve of the 2003 legislative session — during whichthe State Bar of Texas would undergo Sunset review — StateBar leaders asked Walton to extend his service on the State BarBoard of Directors by an additional year so that he could chairthe State Bar Sunset Review Committee.

“I have no idea why they picked me, except that I’m verydetermined,” Walton said. “If given a challenge, I’m going to domy best to accomplish it. Sunset took a lot of time and a lot ofeffort. Fortunately, we were able to get our story across by knock-ing on lots of doors and visiting a large number of legislators.”

The last two times the State Bar had undergone Sunsetreview, the Sunset Advisory Commission had recommended thatthe mandatory State Bar be abolished and its disciplinary func-tions be taken over by the state. Walton headed into the Sunsetprocess determined to secure a better recommendation. Fol-lowing his customary approach to tackling a big project, hegathered as much information as possible. “It was a lot likepreparing for trial,” he remembered.

Walton believes his skills as a trial lawyer helped him tocommunicate with legislators. “Because I’m a litigator, one ofmy skill sets is the ability to distill facts and figures,” he said. “Ialso believe in consensus. If you go in with a ‘My way or thehighway’ attitude, you’re going to get the highway. You have tounderstand other people’s positions.”

www.texasbar.com/tbj Vol. 70, No. 6 • Texas Bar Journal 523

O

Gib Walton and his wife, Martha, with their children, Emily and Cole.

WALTON TAKES OFFICE

A year and a half before the start of the legislative session,the State Bar had a preliminary meeting with members of theSunset Advisory Commission staff. Walton admits he didn’tknow what to expect. “We made our argument: Here are thegreat things the State Bar does,” he said. “They took that infor-mation back and, bless their souls, recommended continuationof the State Bar’s current integrated structure. That decisiongave us a position of strength instead of having to play defense.It enabled us to make recommendations.”

Among several suggestions Walton’s committee made waselimination of the “51 percent rule,” which mandated that amajority of State Bar members must vote in a referendum for itto be valid. The committee pointed to the expense of holding areferendum that may not count and the unfair advantage itbestowed on those who oppose a ballot initiative. A secondcommittee goal was to retain every lawyer’s right to a jury trialin disciplinary proceedings. “We felt strongly that becauselawyers are officers of the court and their clients have the rightto a jury, lawyers should have that right as well,” he explained.

“One thing I was proud of is that we had really strong bipar-tisan support,” Walton said. “We had Republicans, Democrats,tort reformers, and anti-tort reformers all supporting the Bar.”

Walton said his Sunset experience gave him a pretty goodidea of what it’s like to be a lobbyist. Yet asked if he foresees acareer for himself as a lobbyist, he quickly demurred: “Giventhe choice between a hostile judge and jury and a 1 a.m. com-mittee hearing, I’ll take the hostile judge and jury any day!”

ib Walton was born in Houston, the oldest of threechildren. His grandfather was a surgeon; his grand-

mother taught him how to play cards. In high school,Walton excelled at academics and athletics, graduating valedic-torian and starring on the football field. One of his few regretsis that he didn’t reach fluency in Spanish. Still, when a teacheroffered to give an A to any student who placed in the citywideSpanish poetry contest, Walton and two friends swept the topprizes. Walton smiled mischievously when asked how manyentrants the contest attracted, but he can still recite the poem.

Like his father, Walton attracted the attention of collegefootball scouts. When the University of Virginia flew Walton toCharlottesville for a recruiting visit, Walton took one look atthe Blue Ridge Mountains and said, “Where do I sign up?”Walton received a full scholarship to Mr. Jefferson’s University,but concedes he was morescholar than athlete, andmostly warmed the bench.“We didn’t win many footballgames, and I was not a greatfootball player, but I got agreat education and had agreat time,” he recalled. Moreimportant, he met Martha,who was two years behindhim and among the firstfemale students at UVA. Wal-ton graduated Phi BetaKappa, married Martha, andenrolled at the University ofTexas School of Law. (TheWalton’s two children, Coleand Emily, each followedtheir parents to UVA.)

After law school, Waltonclerked for Judge MalcolmWilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.Wilkey was the first of several legal mentors who would beinfluential in Walton’s career. After he and Martha embarkedon a whirlwind tour of Europe, the young couple moved toHouston, where Walton started working for Vinson & Elkins.Five years later, Walton became certified in personal injurytrial law and civil trial law, though his practice has evolvedfrom primarily tort litigation to business and commercial liti-gation. While working in the general litigation section atV&E, Walton found another mentor, Ewing Werlein, Jr., nowa federal district judge and also the son of court of appeals jus-tice and lawyer Ewing Werlein, Sr., who coincidentally servedas interim Harris County district attorney before Walton’sfather’s first election in November 1954.

Before Dan Walton was appointed to the bench, he had

been in line to become president of the Houston Junior Bar,forerunner to the Houston Young Lawyers Association. Gib Wal-ton decided to become involved in bar work because the lawyerswho had meant so much to him (his father, Wilkey, and Werlein)spoke so highly of their participation. After handling severalcases for the Houston Volunteer Lawyers Program (HVLP), Wal-ton was invited to join its board. “That was an extremely inter-esting and rewarding experience, and it reinforced for me theimportance of what our bar does for people who can’t affordvital, necessary legal services,” he said. “It made me even morecommitted to continued involvement with the bar.”

In 1998, Walton followed in the footsteps of Werlein andtook office as president of the Houston Bar Association. Wal-ton’s primary emphasis during his year as president was toincrease legal services to the poor. “We were able to get 40 to

50 large and mid-sized firmsand corporate legal depart-ments to sign up and committo take a certain number ofcases from HVLP,” heremembered. Walton alsoconvened the first pro bonosummit in Texas and helpedplan a diversity lunch forHouston summer associates.

Reflecting on his year inoffice, Walton recalled mostfondly the people he met. “Ididn’t have a real grasp of howmany lawyers in the city ofHouston I would get to knowwho are not litigators,” he said.“It was a wonderful experiencemeeting a huge group I other-wise might have never crossedpaths with.”

Presidents of the Houston Bar Association have a tradition ofcontinuing to serve the bar by running for a position on the StateBar Board of Directors. When Walton’s year as HBA presidentended, he started a three-year term on the State Bar board.Among many committee assignments, Walton served as chair ofthe Finance Committee. “I really enjoyed my years on the board,and because of Sunset, I probably got to know the intricacies ofthe bar as well as anyone ever does,” he said. The nominatingcommittee first approached Walton about running for presidenttwo years ago. “I told them I was not interested because Emilywas a senior in high school at the time,” he recalled. “OnceEmily graduated, Martha and I sat down and decided to do it.We had a lot of fun campaigning around the state.”

Walton believes the State Bar is running well from an orga-nizational standpoint, so he wants to focus his year as president

524 Texas Bar Journal • June 2007 www.texasbar.com

G

I believe in consensus. Ifyou go in with a “My wayor the highway” attitude,you’re going to get thehighway. You have tounderstand other people’spositions.

— Gib Walton

on initiatives to improve professionalism and educate the pub-lic about the judicial system and the rule of law.

“I think the Bar’s in better shape than it’s ever been,” hesaid. “I finally decided — when it was over — that Sunset is agood process: It makes an organization evaluate itself. Thecommission mandated that the State Bar create a strategic plan,which has turned out to be an extremely helpful document.Overall, I’d give the Bar an A. My goal is to get it to an A+.”

Aside from meeting lawyers across the state, Walton has beenbusy meeting bar leaders across the country. “There isn’t a barassociation in the country that is doing more or doing it better,”he explained. “The Texas Young Lawyers Association, for exam-ple, is absolutely the premier young lawyer group in the countryand TexasBarCLE continues to be the best CLE provider.”

Walton has four primary goals for his year as president. Themost ambitious is a public education initiative. “One of thecore missions of the State Bar is to educate the public about therule of law,” he said. “I want to work on a public education ini-tiative that hopefully will continue beyond my year. Our justicesystem is the best in the world, the best anyone’s come up with.Unfortunately, we’re seeing a lot of attacks on judges who arejust doing their job.” He thinks we need to do a better job ofeducating the public. “There are both judges and lawyers whomake poor decisions and misbehave — but that’s why we havean appeals process and a disciplinary system. We need to do abetter job of communicating with the public so people don’twant to throw out the entire system just because somethinghappens that they disagree with.”

Walton hopes to implement the public education initiativein a variety of media, including public service announcementsand radio spots, but stresses that the initiative will be totallynonpartisan. “We intend to stay on solid common ground —supporting our Constitution, the three branches of govern-ment, and the rule of law,” he stated. This is not, Waltonemphasizes, a PR campaign: “‘PR campaign,’ in my mind, is apejorative term. It means someone is trying to sell you some-thing. I’m calling this a public education initiative because itwill inform people, give them facts, and make them think.”

A second point of emphasis during Walton’s term as presi-dent is to focus on diversity. “I want to continue to explorewhat we can do to increase diversity,” he said. “I want to buildon the recommendations of the recent report by the State BarTask Force on women and minorities.”

Walton’s third objective is to continue Martha Dickie’semphasis on educating lawyers about depression and mentalhealth. “It’s essential that this not be a one-year program,” he said.

Finally, Walton wants to increase support for legal servicesto the poor. “We need to thank the Supreme Court of Texas,which recently issued a ‘comparability rule,’ whereby lawyersmust keep their IOLTA accounts with financial institutionsthat pay IOLTA interest rates comparable to the rates they

offer similar accounts,” he explained. “This could be the mostsignificant thing to happen to legal services to the poor in along time.” Walton recently traveled with a delegation toWashington, D.C., to encourage Texas’ senators and represen-tatives to support increased funding for the Legal Services Cor-poration, and was encouraged by their positive reception.

Walton expects to work tirelessly during his year as StateBar president on these issues and the unexpected ones that willarise. “I have no further interest in politics, but representing thelegal profession is something that’s really important to me,” hestated. “I’m excited about the people I’m going to work withand I look forward to traveling around the state.” This time, hemay not hand out push cards from the back of a campaigntruck, but he’ll be campaigning just as hard for Texas lawyers. J

www.texasbar.com/tbj Vol. 70, No. 6 • Texas Bar Journal 525

Walton with the family’s Australian shepherd, Sydney, given to them byhis assistant, Karen, and her husband, Walter.

WALTON TAKES OFFICE