Biography
The following interview on August 10 is with Larry Germer who practiced law primarily with Orgain, Bell and Tucker law until 1994, then partnering with Paul Gertz. The interviewer is Cynthia Devlin.CD is Cynthia Devlin
LG is Larry Germer
Transcript
CD: This is Cynthia Devlin we are here at the Jack Brooks Federal Courthouse I'm interviewing Larry Germer, it is August 10th, looks like 9: 50. Mr. Germer if you would just take over and give me some of the information here; your name, state your name, where you were born, and a little nit about your educational backgroundLG: I'm Larry Germer, I was born in Refugio Texas, went to Texas undergrad and Texas Law school came here in 1966 with Orgain, Bell and Tucker to practice law, basically to practice law primarily here ever since I'm a trial lawyer on the defense side almost exclusively defending companies or people that get sued, let's see professional history I was with Orgain, Bell and Tucker until I guess '94 and then left Orgain, Bell and Tucker with other partner Paul Gertz so we started another firm here in town called Germer-Gertz which is now actually home to I think 60 something lawyers we have offices in Houston and in Austin, if you draw a line very carefully from Houston up through Dallas I think our firm is either the biggest firm east of that line but you have to exclude Houston and Dallas. I practiced in the eastern district all my career, I've had cases in other federal districts, but not, mainly it's been in the eastern district. The Beaumont division, the personality of the Beaumont division when you practice as long as I have you have to say its set by judge Fisher , am sure you've heard that before many times, because for so long he was the only judge, then the dominant judge
CD: He's been described as bigger than life
LG: And that is absolutely true, but the personality was professional, respect for the court, lawyers should do a good job, lawyers should be extremely professional either because of Judge Fisher or perhaps just because of the lawyers that were here in the district I always felt like there was a good relationship among the lawyers, a true professional relationship in almost all cases, a mutual respect between lawyers on the defense side and the plaintiff side, significantly more so than in other areas that I know about, so I think that to me was one of the essence of the eastern district and it was, and I think still is a great thing, it's less treated as an every other place, there's so many lawyers, and it's a little different operation but most of the time that I've known the eastern district I would say it has a sort of a special feeling there. I do think that again Judge Fisher depending on what it followed too had reflected the community values in this region and I think now primarily of the Beaumont division cause that's what I know best. I think the relationship, the way the lawyers treated themselves, treated each other was a part of ah, that came from the community, the community was that kind of community and the judges were that way so I do think that if the judges and the community were part of this is fact that existed.
CD: You can break when you have to, I know you're on a tight schedule
LG: I actually am, let's just go I don't know what you're looking for in terms of stories
END OF INTERVIEW