After having practiced at McKool Smith and Haynes Boone, two lawyers announced this week they are starting a trial boutique focused on tenants’ rights and complex property and construction litigation.
It was last year at the gala benefiting the Texas Access to Justice Commission’s Veterans Committee, that Alexander Clark and Kyle Ryman, who at the time were practicing at different firms but knew each other from their time attending the University of Texas School of Law together, had their first conversation about branching out on their own.
“The speaker that night was Brian Stevenson, and he talked a lot about how lawyers needed to be more proximate in the communities that they serve, to serve real people. And we found that very compelling,” Clark told The Texas Lawbook. “The idea that we could use our background, our skills and our… credentials on behalf of real people and not just big corporations, was very exciting to us.”
Fast forward one year, and on the day of this year’s gala, the duo announced they had launched Ryman Clark. The firm is based in Round Rock but the lawyers plan to practice across the state.
“We spent most of our careers representing giant corporations in eight- and nine-figure disputes, and we learned exactly how those companies litigate against individuals,” Ryman said in a press release. “We make it a fair fight.”
The firm focuses on three areas: landlord misconduct (residential and commercial), construction defect disputes, and property insurance and coverage litigation.
Ryman had worked at McKool Smith for two years after clerking for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett. Before going to law school he served eight years as a U.S. Army Infantry Officer. He deployed to Afghanistan twice.
Clark has spent nearly the last five years litigating insurance cases at Haynes Boone. He served six years in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. Before that, Clark was a third-grade teacher with Teach For America in San Antonio.
The other attorneys joining the firm are Martin Gatens, who left Beck Redden, Richard Hood, who operated his own firm focused on mold and contractor litigation, Alex McClintic, who left Fan Law Office, and Josh Davis, who formerly operated his own firm in Bryan-College Station.