Mariah Bhatti recently joined J.D. Silva & Associates as its head of litigation department from Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP in Houston.
“We’re excited to welcome Mariah to our leadership team,” Johnathan D. Silva, founding partner of J.D. Silva & Associates, said at the time of her hiring. “Her depth of experience, strategic litigation skills, and ability to lead attorneys through complex, high-exposure cases will be invaluable to our clients and our firm as a whole.”
Bhatti earned her bachelor’s in communications from Purdue University.
She returned home for law school, where she earned her J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston in 2016.
Bhatti recently sat down with The Texas Lawbook.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Lawbook: What was a memorable experience or case in your career?
One client of mine was an 18-wheeler driver, but he had been rear-ended by an 18-wheeler in the middle of the night. I think the driver of the other 18-wheeler had fallen asleep at the wheel, and when they rear-ended him. The other one burst into flames. It was just, it was a terrible accident, and he couldn’t work for over a year. It just completely turned his life upside down. That one, we were able to get him a really good pre-litigation offer. He hadn’t been working.
It was something where, if we had gone into litigation, it would have just taken so much longer, and this, we were able to get him almost a million dollars in his pocket. That one has really stuck with me. He was so grateful, and it just was something we were willing to do pretty quickly.
There was another one, a lady who still reaches out to me all the time. She’s so sweet. She’ll still send me messages on Christmas, on my birthday, and things like that. She had an injury at Kroger. It was a slip and fall at a Kroger, and she was the main support system for her family.
Her father was disabled, her sister was disabled, so her not being able to work, her being out of commission, was just a huge stress on her family, and we got a really good result on that one. Now they’re just thriving. She keeps me updated on them, and she’s like, “If you hadn’t done this for me, we wouldn’t have been here.” Now they’re just doing great. It’s always nice when clients keep up with you afterwards and keep you updated on their life and how they’re doing. Obviously, it makes me feel good when they still think of me, not just to reach out to me when something happens, but to let me know how they’re doing. It’s nice to keep up with them.
Lawbook: What’s the best advice you have received?
I think one thing, especially, is being in this field is it’s very male-dominated, especially the personal injury world. Being a female attorney in the personal injury realm is difficult, a little bit. My last boss was a female, and I don’t remember exactly what the advice was that she gave, but it was basically that you can’t be afraid to be loud or go in there and be the only female in the room, because we will be most of the time. Be OK with doing that.
You’re going to walk into rooms where they’re going to look at you, and obviously you get called the paralegal. You get called the secretary a lot. You just kind of have to go in there with and kind of have to be a little bit more of a hard ass than you might normally be in situations, just because they’re already looking at you like, “OK, this is a woman. We’re going to be able to get one over on her.”
You just have to not be afraid to just be loud to not be afraid of what people are going to say about you, because they’re going to say something about you anyway. Just give it your all. Be OK with taking up space and making your voice heard in a room full of men where they may not want to hear what you have to say. It was nice having her as my mentor for a while because she’s wildly successful, but she’s also still very much a super girly girl.
Lawbook: Why did you decide to join J.D. Silva & Associates?
When I first graduated from law school, I went to a plaintiffs’ firm, and I was there for almost three years. I really enjoyed it. Then I went to another plaintiffs’ firm, but then I’ve been on the defense side for almost four years, and I really just missed being on the plaintiff side, actually being able to help people. I was representing insurance companies and other businesses before on the defense side, and it’s just not as rewarding. When your client is an actual person who you can see how this has affected them and how it’s helping them. Then in the end, it’s just a much more rewarding process overall than working for the insurance companies; you just don’t feel fulfilled. That’s definitely what I was missing. I knew I wanted to come back to the plaintiff side. Then this role just sounded great to be able to come in and help shape the litigation department.
Lawbook: What are you looking forward to about being head of litigation?
We’ve been really successful with pre-litigation so far, and we’ve had a litigation department, but just making it stronger, mentoring the younger attorneys to learn a little bit more about litigation, to be able to carry the cases all the way through, and just really making the litigation department just as strong as the pre-litigation department. Because right now, I think numbers-wise, as far as the firm goes, most of the money has come from pre-litigation, because it’s been more successful. I want to get the litigation department just full steam ahead and make it so that we can try a lot of cases.
Lawbook: Do you have a pre-trial ritual?
I don’t think I’ve really got a ritual. But I do try to make sure that I’ll actually remember to eat, because that’s one thing where I’ll just be like, working for hours and be like, ‘oh, did I actually eat anything.’ That’s why sometimes I’ll tell my mom when I’m prepping for trial, and she’s brought me home cooked meals sometimes. That’s always nice to have a little bit of a refresh there.
Lawbook: What is the strategic reason behind having the location in Pearland and McAllen?
The owner of the firm, Jonathan, is from this area. He grew up in Clute, Texas, which is not even 20 minutes down the highway. He grew up here, went to high school around here. A lot of our clients are people who have grown up knowing him. It’s really nice, because he feels a sense of community here. Obviously, we have cases all over, but it’s nice having the head office here where people who kind of know him from the community. One of the things that really drew me to the firm was that he does a lot of giving back to the community.
In September, we have a two-day festival that’s free to anyone who wants to go. They’ve got bands, they’re going to have the food, I think there’s rides, things like that. He just loves to give back to this community, where he grew up. I know he does Thanksgiving turkey giveaways. He does toy drives for Christmas.
I feel like it just gives you a little bit more of a tie to the community, and then that makes them feel a little bit more comfortable reaching out to us, as opposed to just looking up all the 1000s of other attorneys that are available in the Houston area. It’s nice. Makes you feel a little bit more part of the community, rather than just lost in the shuffle of everything else in big cities like Houston.
Then McAllen. Same thing, it’s a very tight-knit area over there, too. Having a big office over there, and people who are from there that are running that office, just helps. I think it just builds more trust, maybe even with people who, if they haven’t met us, or even if they don’t know him from growing up in this area. Just knowing that he’s from here, knowing that a lot of people who work here are from the area. It makes it feel a little more comfortable coming to us, which is great for us.
Lawbook: Are there any plans on opening other offices?
We’re looking to open El Paso probably next. We also have an office in Angleton, which is down the road. We’re definitely looking to open a couple more locations in the next year, next two years, definitely. And then we have, I believe, in November, we’re breaking ground on a huge law complex office. It’s going to be our main office, and then I think we’re going to have some other vendors that are maybe officed underneath. That’s a really exciting, big project that’s coming up.