Update from Gary Smotherman, II— May 2025

Good Morning and Happy Wednesday,

I'm writing this entry from the jury box of the 212th District Court in Galveston County as I wait for some paperwork to be printed by the state so my client can be released from jail on a Possession of a Controlled Substance (3rd degree felony drug case). This is the court that I think I've learned the most in and tried the most with.

I've spent a lot of time building up my practice and my skills in this county over the last 5 years or so. I initially expanded my practice down here to stay connected to the community I grew up in, found an office space I could use whenever I needed and even started serving as an appointed lawyer— even doing some work in the jail taking shifts for lawyers on the felony bail reviews and misdemenor jail dockets. 5 years is a transformative time. So much so that even I can tell the difference in my trial skills— and I was already good before.

But my time concentrating my efforts in Galveston County is coming to an end. I'm no longer getting appointed cases, I'm very rarely in the jail, and I've converted my office space into a box in a mail room so that I can continue to have a Galveston County address on the site.

This is not an exit.

This is an expansion.

While my prinicipal office is in Houston, where I took my first case in 2018 and worked on my own for the next 2 years, and I have most of my experience over the last 5 years in Galveston, I've not found the desire to settle down. And I don't think I will settle down.

Currently, I feel as though I'd be willing to practice in a 4 hour radius from the Baseball park in Downtown Houston. And technically that means I'm looking for Austin, Dallas and San Antonio cases. I don't think I want to practice in Collin County, I've heard too many stories. I'd prefer not to go to MoCo, which is the north contiguous county to mine. And there are a few other places I'd prefer not to go, but I'd go to Brazos County, I'd go to Waco, I'd go to Beaumont. There are really only a few places I won't go. But as long as I feel like I can leave and come back home the same day, I'll probably make it out to fight for the client who hired and paid me. And El Paso isn't out of the question as long as I'm not paying for the flight or the Uber, or the food.

And that's the gist of why I feel like I need to give an update. Nothing is fundamentally changing. I'm just going to start going more places to take the same cases I've been taking for the last 8 years. And because of this transition/realization/whatever I am going to slightly shift, or maybe just add (to the point of what feels like disorganization), some posts about cases I'm currently taking but maybe not disclosing the county for the sake of protecting my client's outstanding case, but also so as not to ruffle any feathers as an out-of-towner.

So I'll be continuing to share posts from the firm perspective about areas of law or consumer facing posts or marketing materials we creat here, but I think I will log on personally to share the complexities of certain cases as they come into the firm.

For example, I think my next post will be about defenses available to the accused of the assaults, from plain assault, to assault of a family member, to assault of a peace officer, to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and the charges that fall in between.

Stay tuned, they're calling me for the order releasing my client. Got to go. #gogetgary

Best,

Gary