This summer, during a three-week high-profile trial involving one of the world’s largest automakers, the Hon. Dale Tillery didn’t stop to take a breath.
And if he didn’t stop, he made sure no one else did.
From atop his judicial perch he told the lawyers multiple times – from the weeklong jury selection through a lengthy jury charge conference – that they would stay until “2 a.m. if they had to.”
Barring the occasion that a juror was running late or the lawyers needed to duke out a “for judge’s ears only” motion, Tillery made sure that testimony began at 8:30 every morning.
Instead of retiring to his chambers for lunch when the clock struck noon, he’d remain at his bench to either work or to conduct a hearing for another case to keep his docket moving.
Last week, Judge Tillery revisited Reavis v. Toyota, hearing lawyers from both sides explain why – or why not – he should enter the jury’s verdict delivered in August. Jurors had ordered Toyota Motor Corp to pay Benjamin and Kristi Reavis for the permanent brain damage their small children sustained in a 2016 rear-end collision. Tillery affirmed the verdict and awarded the Reavises $213 million – as much of the $242 million as allowed by state laws capping damages.
Judge Tillery is considered by many as the hardest-working civil judge in Dallas County – and the numbers back up these assertions. According to data obtained from Dallas County’s Central Jury Services, Judge Tillery took 53 cases to a jury trial last year – far more than any other district court in the county (The closest was Martin Hoffman of the 68th District, who tried 33). So far this year, Tillery is again well on pace to being the most productive civil district trial judge; he has handled 43 jury trials as of Oct. 31 and has more on the way.
Immediately after Thursday’s Reavis-Toyota final judgment showdown, Judge Tillery scheduled another trial during the week of Thanksgiving for an investment property dispute that failed to get resolved during a TRO hearing (“Nobody wants the 20th or 21st because of Thanksgiving; I’m just sitting here twiddling my thumbs,” Tillery explained).
“He is a lawyer’s judge. He knows what it’s like to be a trial lawyer.”
— Michael Hurst
One of the lawyers involved was astonished. “The only time I got a trial this fast was a trial related to a nuclear energy case.”
Business lawyers who regularly bring matters before Judge Tillery endorsed that sentiment.
“He is one of the hardest-working judges I have ever met,” Dallas attorney Michael Hurst told The Texas Lawbook in a recent interview. “He is a lawyer’s judge. He knows what it’s like to be a trial lawyer. He acts like a trial lawyer still, too – he’s sympathetic to both sides, he understands what people have to go through to prepare for or present things, and he’s not going to waste anybody’s time.”
“He is the quintessential judicial professional in all ways,” said Mark Johansen, a partner in Perkins Coie’s Dallas office who has argued before Tillery in several hearings. “I have no complaints or criticisms of him and I don’t know anybody who does. He will give you a hearing as fast, or faster, than any state court judge. He’ll hear you early in the morning, he’ll hear you at noon… and he’ll hear you at the end of the day.”
During a recent interview with The Texas Lawbook, Judge Tillery chuckled at the compliment.
“They always say I’m the hardest working judge, so I guess that’s their nice way of saying I’m not the smartest judge,” Judge Tillery quipped. “Anytime a lawyer wants to get a matter before my court, they can always say, ‘Well, I know you don’t have a conflict at lunch.’ ”
Path to Becoming Judge
As a native of Southeast Dallas and a graduate of W.W. Samuell High School, Tillery’s law career wasn’t necessarily inevitable. His father was a Dallas-based international rep for the United Auto Workers union, so he grew up around lawyers and politicians. But when he attended college at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas), Tillery said he was initially torn between becoming a dentist or a lawyer.
His college counselor advised him that he’d have to take Latin if he decided to go the dentist route, so Tillery enrolled in a Latin course for his foreign language credit.
On the first day of Latin class, Tillery sat in the second to last row. The professor told the class that each student would introduce himself or herself to the class in Latin.
An unenthused Tillery got antsy as it got closer to be his turn.
“They went through the first row, then the second row,” Tillery recalls. “I closed my books, walked out of the classroom, and said, ‘I’m taking Spanish,’ and I decided to become a lawyer.”
He later learned that his counselor had misadvised him – Latin was not required to become a dentist.
“It was a mistake that ended up working out well for me,” Tillery said.
After graduating college in 1979, Tillery continued to Texas Tech University School of Law, where he obtained his J.D. in 1982.
His initial plan after graduating law school was to join an oil and gas title firm, but around that time, the 1980s oil downturn hit the economy full force.
“The lawyer (at the firm) called and said, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to have enough work,’” Tillery recalls. “I said, ‘That’s alright, I’d rather not go into uncertainty.’”
Instead, he began working for a lawyer in Dallas who ran a general practice – mostly civil. He learned two things quickly: he loved going to trial, and he loved civil litigation.
“I always wanted to be a trial lawyer, to be in front of a jury and try lawsuits,” Tillery said. “I always liked civil work more than criminal work. It was an opportunity to get pretty big exposure.”
Two years later, Tillery felt compelled to start his own firm, Edwards & Tillery. In the early days, he would practice everything – criminal, probate, civil trials, administrative law, small business contracts – “anything to keep the doors open,” he said.
“By the time I was 4 or 5-year-old, I can remember standing out in the polling places, handing out cards, putting up signs.”
The firm was later renamed to Tillery & Tillery after Tillery’s younger brother, Carl, became a lawyer and joined. The arrival of his brother allowed the firm to continue running while Tillery divided his practice with pursuing his next passion: joining the state legislature.
The opportunity presented itself when Texas House of Representatives member Al Granoff (D-Dallas), who represented the same district as Tillery, retired in 1994. Tillery decided to run and was elected.
“After being a lawyer and practicing with the law, I became more interested in being in on the process of how laws were passed and made,” Tillery said.
He explained that his upbringing contributed greatly to this desire.
“I had always been interested (in serving on the Legislature); it was one of the reasons I wanted to be a lawyer,” Tillery said. “Growing up as a little kid, my parents were very involved in politics, so by the time I was 4 or 5-year-old, I can remember standing out in the polling places, handing out cards, putting up signs. I knew a lot of elected officials. I admired them and respected what they did.”
During his first year in the Texas House, Tillery became the first freshman state representative to bring a bill to the House floor and get it passed, he said.
Through his law practice, Tillery had discovered that a mortuary school had an arrangement with Dallas-area funeral homes that allowed students to practice on the deceased without the knowledge or consent of the deceased’s family members.
Tillery successfully got the legislature to pass a law that required the funeral homes and school to disclose this practice and receive written authorization from family members before the students practiced on their loved one’s bodies.
In the aftermath of the controversial 2000 presidential election, Tillery authored an amendment to the Texas Constitution that required the governor to call a special legislative session to appoint presidential electors if the governor thought a final determination of the Texas vote would not be made before the federal certification deadline.
Tillery also worked closely with state Sen. Royce West and state Rep. Yvonne Davis on the creation of the University of North Texas at Dallas, the only public university based within the Dallas city limits.
He closed out his tenure in the Legislature by serving as the chairman of the House Committee of Pensions and Investments, where he sponsored legislation to increase pensions for retired teachers by up to 10 percent by tapping the then-$6.5 billion surplus in the state’s teacher’s pension fund.
He returned to private practice full-time in 2002, but felt compelled to run for judge in the 2010 midterm elections. He defeated Democrat David Kelton in a runoff primary election in April 2010, then defeated Republican incumbent James Stanton in the November general election.
He said he wanted to bring four things to the bench – experience, defense of the right to trial by jury, accessibility and efficiency.
He elaborated on each point for The Texas Lawbook:
• Experience: “Lawyers want to know… have they walked the walk, and does a judge really understand the life of a trial lawyer? I was board certified for over 20 years in civil and personal injury law. I tried a bunch of jury trials and lawyers knew it.”
• Defending the constitutional right to trial by jury: “I’ve seen it under attack. The only way to keep it viable and vibrant is to have judges fight for it and believe in it – not just talk about it. The only way to defend it is to have jury trials; if you’re not having jury trials, something else is going on.”
• Court accessibility: “That has changed so much since I started practicing. I don’t blame it on the judges – it has to do with the security and the way courts are designed now. With the limited physical accessibility of the courts, I think for judges to be accessible to attorneys, the judge has to go the extra mile to do it. I’ve heard lawyers talk about how they used to come down, see their judges [and be able to say], ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ It hasn’t been that way. I wanted to bring some of that back.”
• Efficiency: “I wanted to do all of those things and be efficient with the county’s money. The commissioners know what we do here in the 134th; we do a lot of jury trials and the cost has not gone up. Another way to defend and protect the right (to a jury trial) is to show it doesn’t drive up the cost.”
Since taking the bench, Judge Tillery says he is most proud of “the fact that a lot of lawyers know that when they come into the 134th, they’re going to get a chance to put their client’s story before a jury or a court and to prepare a client’s case in the way the client expects and deserves it – they’re going to have their time. And when it’s their time, I’m going to give it priority.”
Judge Tillery wakes up naturally by 5 every morning. He immediately gets dressed, drives to the courthouse and begins reading about what is on his docket for the day.
He doesn’t eat breakfast or lunch, instead relying on his passion for the job and cups of coffee to provide fuel for his day. He said he has left the courthouse for lunch no more than “two or three times” throughout his eight years on the bench.
However: “By the time I do get to eat, I make up for it,” Judge Tillery said. “I enjoy my food once I get the chance to eat.”
His staff is loyal to him. His court coordinator, Francine Ly, began working for Judge Tillery in his pre-legislature days as an intern at his firm when she was a sophomore in high school. She’s been working for him ever since.
Judge Tillery has known his bailiff, Phil Fisher, for more than 40 years. Fisher is the first civilian bailiff to serve in Dallas County. Judge Tillery brought Fisher on board as part of a pilot program to save the county about $21,000 a year, but he says Fisher’s service as a bailiff has proved itself priceless. Fisher stays on the job as long as Tillery does, which means Fisher was present for Tillery’s onetime record of conducting hearings until 3 a.m.
A boisterous, no-nonsense type (especially in regard to keeping the jury on schedule), Fisher summed up his feelings for his boss in one short answer when asked during jury deliberation for the Reavis-Toyota trial if he was a bailiff for someone else before Judge Tillery:
“No. Never will be one after him either.”
Tillery’s judicial portrait makes it apparent why his staff feels so strongly about working for him. Unlike his predecessors who posed solo, Judge Tillery poses by the jury box. In the background are all of his staff members.
The message? Says Tillery: “It’s not about me.”