Rusty Hardin's Comments About Derek

Derek grew up and spent his entire educational career in Waco, Texas. After graduating from high school in Waco, he attended Baylor undergraduate and then Baylor law school, where he graduated first in his class. His wife, Lara, who currently serves as of counsel here at the firm, graduated from Baylor law school a year earlier and was second in her class, which has, of course, led to interesting conversations at home. After graduating from Baylor, Derek clerked for one year at the Supreme Court of Texas for the Honorable Priscilla Owen. By this time, he and Lara were married, and they moved to Dallas, where he joined the law firm of Hughes & Luce, while Lara worked at Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal. During the time he was at Hughes & Luce, Derek participated in an intern program at the Dallas County District Attorney's office and decided he would like to avail himself of the opportunity to more regularly try cases. He knew that the District Attorney's office would be the best means of doing so. He and Lara then moved to Houston, where Derek went to work as a trial court prosecutor in the Harris County District Attorney's office. He was extremely well thought of in the District Attorney's office as a young prosecutor with a real future when I was fortunate enough to talk him into joining us in February 2003.

Derek is uniquely qualified to live in both the civil and criminal trial worlds as a result of his clerkship at the Supreme Court, his civil litigation exposure at Hughes & Luce, and his criminal trial court experience at the District Attorney's office. In 2005 and 2006, Derek managed for our firm a complex trade secrets case. He first worked on the case on behalf of Nan Ya Plastics Corporation of Taipei, Taiwan and, after Nan Ya settled, he helped us co-counsel with Baker & McKenzie the claims against Formosa Plastics Corporation of Taipei, Taiwan, a co-defendant to Nan Ya in the same lawsuit. Derek received rave reviews for his management of the case from both sides of the litigation. At the same time, he continued to juggle with Andy Drumheller the various criminal matters in which the firm was engaged. He is very bright, is an excellent writer, and also happens to be a very, very good trial lawyer with a future that holds nothing but outstanding promise. Derek has a very open and reassuring personality with clients that he combines with a very strong work ethic. As does Andy Drumheller, Derek works on both civil and criminal matters. They work incredibly well together and often jointly represent clients in criminal cases. Derek and Lara have a daughter named Carter and two sons, Beck and Rafe.