Fort Worth attorney wins top honors for courageous career

Marshall Searcy was 15 years old and helping his uncle harvest onions on his Collin County farm when practicing law first crossed his mind.

“It was one bad, hot summer and he said, ‘What you need to do is go be a lawyer and sit in an air-conditioned office with your feet propped up on a desk,’” Searcy joked. “The price of onions also went to nothing and further convinced me that is what I wanted to do.”

A lot of people are glad Searcy made that career choice, so much so that the Tarrant County Bar Association gave him the Blackstone Award this week. The association most prestigious honor is given in recognition of a career that exemplifies professional aptitude, integrity and courage.

He received the award at the 2016 Law Day Awards dinner at the Fort Worth Club.

Searcy, 70, is well known in local legal circles. He has been a lawyer for 45 years, 23 years at Kelly Hart & Hallman, the city’s largest private law firm. He worked 22 years at a Dallas firm before being lured to Fort Worth by the late attorney Dee Kelly, one of the firm’s founders.

“It is a great honor. I’m humbled by it. A lot of great guys have gotten it before,” Searcy said.

Besides being included on several “best lawyer” lists, Searcy in 1990 was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, an invitation-only organization composed of the nation’s top trial lawyers. He also belongs to the American Board of Trial Advocates.

During his career, Searcy has focused mostly on commercial litigation, legal malpractice and personal injury. But because he’s “done any and all” kind of cases, he’s also dabbled in criminal law. In the late 1980s, he defended two men from Dallas accused of bribing the chairman of the board of governors of the U.S. Postal Service. Searcy’s defense earned them acquittals.

Sometimes seen as gruff with a gravelly voice adding to that persona, Searcy has a softer side. He and his wife, Annette, have raised seven kids, the youngest a Russian orphan that Searcy adopted in his late 50s. The boy, Timothy, is now 18 years old.

“He’s a great kid. He is a lot of fun and he’s overcome a lot,” Searcy said. He said all of his kids have grown up to be “kind and gentle people.” Two are even attorneys.

Looking back on his career in the law, Searcy says he “doesn’t know what else I would do.” And don’t worry, Searcy doesn’t have any plans to quit anytime soon.

“I find it to be a deep calling. It is the fulcrum of our democracy and in these days and times I believe it more than ever,” Searcy said.

This story was originally published May 6, 2016 at 4:59 PM with the headline "Fort Worth attorney wins top honors for courageous career."