Laura Ramos James:
I started my journey as a lawyer doing insurance defense.
I was at a boutique firm in South Texas and I loved it so much. We had big, catastrophic cases. I was in the courtroom.
Sonya Palmer:
That is Laura Ramos James, and this was the career she'd envisioned.
High-stakes trials, a well-respected firm, but then came the day when a case tore through every assumption Laura had about success, justice, and power.
Laura Ramos James:
I was going to be taking the deposition of a widow, and my goal was to make sure that the testimony that came out, was that she was fine and she had moved on with her life.
I think there was a moment during the deposition when everybody just couldn't hold back tears because that wasn't the case at all.
Sonya Palmer:
Laura found someone whose heartbreak had no script. A woman who woke up every day missing the love of her life.
That widow's deposition would redefine her entire career.
Laura Ramos James:
This woman thought about her husband at all times, from the second she woke up until she went to bed.
Sonya Palmer:
It's where she discovered she could either push for a result her firm wanted, or she could follow her conviction.
Laura Ramos James:
I realized that I could influence the path that the case was going to take by either diminishing her case.
Or I could switch sides and go to the other side and actually stand next to people like her, and support her and get her justice.
Sonya Palmer:
I am Sonya Palmer, host of LawHer and SVP of Operations at Rankings.
Today we hear from Laura Ramos James, who transformed a pivotal courtroom moment into an eight-figure personal injury practice. Let's dive in.
Laura Ramos James:
Even though I was at a law firm where I was very happy with people that I admired, that I was learning from in a place of the country that I enjoyed, there were just other things that were missing.
Once you realize that there's a void and you know how you can fill it, that's just magic, it just clicks.
Sonya Palmer:
For Laura, recognizing the gap between what was and what could be was an invitation to transform, so she took a leap.
Laura decided to leave insurance defense behind and represent the very people she once faced across the table.
Laura Ramos James:
There's no point in staying and not enjoying what I do because I worked so hard for it.
If I'm going to fail, basically I'm going to go down in flames. I'm going to go doing what I can tell is my calling.
Sonya Palmer:
Rather than trying to fit into someone else's idea of success, Laura turned her own story into a purpose-driven mission.
Laura Ramos James:
One of the things that my law firm really prides itself on is that we take a values-based approach, which is something that I saw was missing in the practice. Just by the nature of a law firm being a business, a lot of attorneys will advertise that Spanish is spoken at the law firm. And it may be 10 attorneys handling 500 cases, and they have one legal assistant who's bilingual.
And of course, the legal assistant isn't able to get to those Spanish speakers quickly enough to answer their questions, return their calls or translate conversations, prepare them for depositions, et cetera. So I saw that that community was not getting excellent legal representation. And there is, in my eyes, no reason why they should get any less than anybody else who is here seeking justice.
Being in a male-dominated field wasn't ever a reason for me to doubt like, "Oh, I'm not going to do it." But I will say that as I started the practice and as I started seeing, working with women and seeing, getting more acquainted with women, lawyers in the community. I have become more aware of different experiences that women have in the law, and I have tried to make it my goal to mentor.
Sonya Palmer:
Laura's commitment to uplifting others goes beyond her firm. She even wrote a book collaborating with eight other women, who share how they juggle ambition, motherhood, and the law.
It's an honest account and a tool that helps others see themselves in her experience and tap into a power of their own.
Laura Ramos James:
A lot of women are afraid to walk into a room with authority, or women are more hesitant to want to go out on their own because they doubt themselves and that they're going to make mistakes. And they see things out there that are packaged perfectly and they just look like so.
People are being so successful and they're killing it, and they're just winning all these cases and doing it great, and that's not the reality. I think the majority of people who are successful are because of their failures and how they deal with failure.
I have found a lot of reward by connecting with people and sharing those common struggles that we all face. And I did want to disabuse people from the notion that because I run a successful law firm, I just had it all nice and pretty all along. It wasn't. There was blood, sweat and tears and there still is.
You're just going to do it. I wanted to share that for women or for anyone who is scared, because they think you have to be perfect, otherwise it doesn't work out. And you just don't have it in you, and that's just the biggest lie.
Sonya Palmer:
Vulnerability isn't always the default in law, but for Laura, it became a cornerstone.
She's open about her near-fatal dog attack at age three, her early struggles in law school nearly quitting, and the demands of motherhood.
Laura Ramos James:
The longer I practiced and the more exposed I was to clients who were injured, who experienced invisible injuries and visible injuries, we would run focus groups of people who had sustained facial injuries or things that were disfiguring. And then many jurors would say like, "Oh, she looks perfectly fine."
And someone may think, "Oh, you just get a surgery and it can mask it or it can get rid of it," and there's so much to it. There's psychological and emotional components to it. And so the longer I practiced, the longer I saw the need for people to know, clients to know. It probably was helpful for people to understand that I'm not just saying this out of thin air.
I've actually been through a very traumatic experience that became part of my upbringing, and that I have a couple of things to share.
Sonya Palmer:
It's that empathy born from adversity that makes Laura's perspective so valuable.
Coming from Monclova, Mexico, moving to the US at 18 with limited English, she found opportunities some attorneys miss, precisely because of her bicultural insight.
Laura Ramos James:
It's actually led to my practice being so successful. I think that part of it is the fact that not only do I speak the language, but I actually grew up elsewhere. And I have been able to share with everyone who works at my law firm, the approach that we want to take with dealing with clients from different cultural backgrounds and it goes way beyond language.
Some of my clients have been undocumented. And the fear of thinking that they don't have rights or if they actually go to court, are they going to get in trouble? Are they going to go to jail? Are they going to get deported? Things like that. In the recent climate, all of those fears have been exponentially brought to light.
But in the past, that's been one, it's always been a constant of having to or putting myself in their shoes and trying to explain to them how we handle those legal hurdles, so to speak. But there are other aspects, just like when you meet a client for the first time, there is a culture of machismo, so approaching certain clients who are male clients.
I think in different cultures you do it different ways, and so just growing up there, I'm sensitive to certain things and how to explain certain concepts so that they're well-received. And that they actually trust me and perceive me as someone who has authority in the legal field, and is trying to help them.
And not trying to take advantage of them, or trying to speak out of turn or anything like that, which is just a part of the culture in many places. Going through those challenges allowed me to have an understanding and an appreciation that was kind of unique and that I've tried to incorporate into my practice.
And again, share with my team so that they know the different challenges that our clients go through. When they receive paperwork in the mail from an insurance company, asking them to sign certain documents that they don't fully understand. Or when we explain certain legal terms to them, when they may not have the educational background to break them up, even if they do understand some English.
Sonya Palmer:
Laura's reputation grew through the community involvement, educational talks, volunteering with nonprofits, marketing in Spanish, meeting people right where they are.
She built trust one connection at a time, and that trust keeps fueling her firm's growth.
Laura Ramos James:
When I went out on my own and I decided to collaborate with nonprofit organizations, and so I started volunteering my time to give these educational speeches or talks or put together resources for them.
Then a lot of my marketing was in Spanish, and many, many mediators even or judges, when they would be involved in my cases, it snowballed, because then they would send me those referrals. They knew that I identify and could help that population.
Sonya Palmer:
Laura's journey is proof that true power comes from cultivating your story and using it to lift others. It's finding a path that honors your convictions, your culture, and your compassion. Thank you for joining us on LawHer.
If you found inspiration in Laura's story, please subscribe and share this episode. Let's keep this conversation going, and keep redefining what power really means in the world of law.
Laura Ramos James:
When I was in law school, I was called sweetheart and I was treated like I needed to go get coffee for people and nothing else. Things are not that way anymore.
Women have earned their place rightfully. It is just super exciting to see what's coming. How things are now, what women are accomplishing in the law is truly incredible. It's only up from here.
