The Gamut of a Great Trial Lawyer, with Fields Alexander of Beck Redden

Fields Alexander is a partner in the Houston office of Beck Redden. Photo by Felix Sanchez.

When Beck Redden partner Fields Alexander delivered his opening statement at a recent civil trial, the spectators in the courtroom included his daughter, a college freshman. The father of three says he has been “very intentional” in not pushing any of his children into the legal profession. “It is a demanding profession as they well know,” he notes. But his daughter “would be good at it” if she chose that path.

She’d certainly have an enviable resource in her father. When Fields Alexander steps into the courtroom, he commands attention not just for his formidable presence, but for his meticulous preparation and deep understanding of every detail in his cases. Known for his hard work and unwavering commitment, Alexander is a trial lawyer who takes no shortcuts. His keen eye for detail and thorough approach make him a formidable opponent, respected by juries, judges and adversaries alike.

Beyond his tenacity in the courtroom, Alexander is known for his genuine care for others. Whenever someone calls him – whether a client, colleague, or even someone he is not able to represent – he makes it his mission to leave them in a better position than he found them. This commitment to helping others, even outside the confines of his legal work, has earned him admiration far and wide.

Alexander, himself the son of an attorney, has established himself as an accomplished trial lawyer, in Texas courts and elsewhere, since he was admitted to the bar in 1992. After clerking for Judge Lee Rosenthal in the Southern District of Texas and working as an associate with the venerable Houston firm of Vinson & Elkins, he acquired his first extensive trial experience at Brown McCarroll in Austin. Then it was back to Houston to join litigation boutique Beck Redden in 2001, where he has remained ever since, making a name for himself as a standout litigator.

Alexander’s practice now runs the gamut from commercial transactions and business torts to patent disputes and energy litigation, with clients on both sides of the docket. The diversity of his practice is a direct result of the respect he has garnered for himself throughout his career. His ability to build strong relationships with both co-counsel and opposing counsel, who have been so impressed by his courtroom style and exhaustive preparation that they later hired him, is a testament to his exceptional skills and, according to Alexander, “one of the highest compliments a lawyer can receive.”

Earlier this year, Alexander and Beck Redden associate Jake McClellan successfully defended a midstream gas gatherer in an arbitration proceeding brought by an oil and gas producer, defeating a claim of over $17M and obtaining an award for the client of $1.5M in costs. In June, the same team, joined by associate Madison Young Moore, prevailed in a jury trial in Texas state court, obtaining a judgment of over $26M for their client in a breach of contract action. In 2022, he was hired along with David J. Beck to represent the plaintiffs in a complex billion-dollar federal securities fraud class action in New York Federal Court, a case that settled favorably on the courthouse steps. In another notable case, he teamed up with a UK lawyer in 2018 to win an arbitration award of almost $30M for an energy company.

In much-deserved recognitions, and a testament to the scope of his work, Alexander is a member of the Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America, the Lawdragon 500 Leading Energy Lawyers, and the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers. 

Alexander earned an undergraduate degree at The University of Texas at Austin and his law degree at the same institution. He recently spoke to Lawdragon about his career and the secrets of his success in the courtroom.

Anytime I was fortunate enough to sit in on an evidentiary proceeding, whether it was a trial or otherwise, I would make it a point to try to come up with objections and responses before the lawyers could.

Lawdragon: How would you describe the current mix of your practice?

Fields Alexander: One of the things I really like about this firm is the diversity of practice areas that you get. We're not pigeon-holed into narrow practice areas. So I do work for everyone from individuals to small family-owned businesses to Fortune 50 companies and everything in between. I do work on both sides of the docket and I've handled a wide variety of cases – patent disputes, lots of contract disputes, lots of what I call business torts, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, those kinds of things. I tried a will contest. So it really runs the gamut and it's by design here at this firm. We're looking for people whose focus is on effective advocacy and not on becoming an expert in a narrow subject matter.

LD: How did you first become a lawyer? Are there lawyers in your family? What drew you to it?

FA: There's all of one lawyer in my family, but it was my father, so clearly that had a place to play, although he never pushed me into the law. I came to my own decision that I wanted to be a lawyer, but it was clear to me that he liked what he did. And it was also clear to me that I found the people that he was interacting with as lawyers, his lawyer friends, to be interesting, intellectually challenging and just colorful people to be around. That all helped color my experience. I thought about a lot of different careers, but gravitational pull led me to the law.

LD: When you were in law school, is this the type of practice that you imagined you would have?

FA: Yes, I've been very lucky in that regard. I did want to be a trial lawyer. That's why I went to law school. And I did want to be known as someone who could try a variety of cases for a variety of clients. I never really wanted to narrow myself down to antitrust law or First Amendment law or whatever. I wanted to be a trial lawyer and I thought to be a trial lawyer, you ought to be able to try all different kinds of cases. So in many regards, this firm has been a perfect fit for me.

LD: What was your clerkship experience like?

FA: It was a wonderful experience for me. I was very fortunate to clerk with an exceptional judge, Judge Lee Rosenthal. She had just been appointed to the [federal] bench and the other fellow and I were the first people to serve as her law clerks. So there was some learning going on among all three of us. But what was very evident from the get-go was she was extraordinarily bright, had an extremely good judicial temperament, was really born to be an exceptional judge.

It was a great learning experience for me in a lot of ways. It taught me a lot about effective legal writing and it was where I honed my knowledge of the rules of evidence. Anytime I was fortunate enough to sit in on an evidentiary proceeding, whether it was a trial or otherwise, I would make it a point to try to come up with objections and responses before the lawyers could so that when a document was being introduced into evidence, I would think to myself, how could I try to keep it out if I was on the other side and how would I respond if I did make this argument? By the end of the year, I found myself sometimes beating the practicing trial lawyers at their own game.

LD: When did you first become involved in DE&I at your firm and what drew you to it?

FA: I was involved right when we first formed a DE&I committee, but even before that, I have been helping to make sure that we are doing everything we can to both hire and promote on a basis that is colorblind and gender-blind, for as long as I've been a lawyer. A passion of mine growing up was fighting discrimination. I don't mean to suggest that there was a lot of discrimination going on at this firm, there wasn't, but we're susceptible just like everybody else to inadvertent colorblindness and inadvertent failure to spot issues that just inevitably can occur when you're surrounded by people that aren't as diverse as you'd like a firm to be. So it's always been something that's been front and center for me.

LD: What are some of the DE&I initiatives that you’ve helped with?

FA: We've done a lot of very interesting things. One is we've transformed our mentor/mentee system so that it's much more of a group effort rather than singular mentors working with singular mentees. We've also done a series of trainings, including trainings for partners. We hired a DE&I consultant to assist us in building a strategic plan, finding out where our blind spots are and helping us correct them, and helping to educate people on unconscious bias and the other ways in which we can be inadvertently holding our young lawyers back or really any of our lawyers back from progressing to their full potential.

We are a firm that does not cut corners, does not take unfair advantage of an adversary's issues, tries very hard to work up and try lawsuits the right way, the old school way.

LD: Can you point to one or maybe two cases that stand out in your mind as particularly memorable?

FA: Probably about eight or 10 years ago, I got hired by a client to represent them in a plaintiffs’ case concerning a fairly sophisticated piece of oil and gas equipment that failed on an offshore oil rig. One of the most interesting things about the case to me was that under the agreement between my client and the other side, disputes were to be resolved under English law in arbitration in London. So I went to London and tried the dispute under English law in front of a former British appellate judge with British trial lawyers. I found the whole experience to be absolutely fascinating, looking at the ways in which our law was very similar to the British law and at ways in which it was incredibly different. Although it was an arbitration, the trial was conducted 100 percent as it would have been had it been a civil trial in a British court of law. It was endlessly fascinating to me to see both the similarities and the differences in the styles of the British lawyers as they contrasted with the style of an American trial lawyer. Didn't hurt that we ended up with almost a $30M judgment against the other side.

LD: Is there another one that comes to mind?

FA: There’s another one in which the dollars were not nearly as big, but the impact on the client was. I got hired about 10 or 12 years ago to represent a family of very modest means, very blue-collar family from rural Louisiana. The only person in the family that had any money at all was a widow who had left her entire estate to her stockbroker. The family smelled something fishy and hired me to try to deal with it.

As I dug into the facts, it turned out that the decedent wrote wills the way you and I might drink a cup of coffee. She'd go to a family outing and somebody would make her mad, and she'd come home and rewrite the will. My goal was to get things back such that all the money went to the family. And to do that, we had to undo 15 wills in which she'd given an ever-increasing stake to her stockbroker. It turned out we had evidence that she had fallen in love with him, although he was married, that he knew she had fallen in love with him and that he was strongly encouraging her to do exactly what she did, which was ultimately give virtually everything to him. We ended up with exactly the result we wanted. We got the jury to undo 15 wills and go back to one that gave everything to our clients. By the time it was all said and done, I think the jury would have undone 200 wills in a row if it kept any money from going to that stockbroker.

LD: Did you join Beck Redden right out of your clerkship?

FA: I didn't actually. I started off at Vinson & Elkins after my clerkship, and I won't say a bad word about V&E, still have some friends from there. Great firm, great lawyers. But it was clear to me almost from the get-go that my desire of becoming a hopefully accomplished trial lawyer was going to have a hard time coming to fruition at a firm like that. So I was there for a couple of years and then I took a job at a firm [Brown McCarroll] that had a much more robust trial docket in Austin. I was there for about five years. And in 2001 for family reasons, Houston became a more appealing platform. The first call I made was to Beck Redden because of its reputation. I came down and interviewed with all the partners and was offered a position as of counsel. I was a partner where I was, but the prospect of Beck Redden was so alluring to me, and I was willing to bet that I could make partner here.

LD: Why have you stayed this long at Beck Redden and why might a young lawyer who wants to have a similar career want to consider Beck Redden?

FA: Number one is the reputation the firm has built as a first-tier trial lawyers' law firm, a place where people go when they need to get their lawsuit tried. Couple that with the high degree of professionalism. We are a firm that does not cut corners, does not take unfair advantage of an adversary's issues, tries very hard to work up and try lawsuits the right way, the old school way. And then the collegiality. Look, no place is perfect but everybody here gets along extremely well.

LD: Beck Redden's really known for their appellate practice. When you're building a case, are you automatically then thinking about the record for the possible appeal?

FA: Yes, it's a tremendous asset for us. When I joined Beck Redden, it wasn't something that we really had. We really didn't have a discrete appellate practice and it was something that we fixed in a huge way. It's a tremendous benefit for me in a lot of ways. The ability to have experienced, qualified, very good appellate lawyers to help you as you're getting ready for the significant legal challenges that come up in a trial is a critical advantage for our clients. Depending upon the case, I'll often get the appellate lawyers involved early on such that they're helping me along the way to mold the legal theories, to mold the pleadings, to think about evidentiary issues and just previewing for them what's going to be coming down the pike so that when I do hand the case off to them, it's as well positioned from an appellate standpoint as it can be.

The ability to have experienced, qualified, very good appellate lawyers to help you as you're getting ready for the significant legal challenges that come up in a trial is a critical advantage for our clients.

LD: How would you describe your style in the courtroom?

FA: My style in the courtroom is professional and relentless. I know the things I need to cover with the jury, and I'm going to get to those. I'm going to do my very best to get that evidence before the jury and to do it with style and with humor if I can. I like to think that I can inject humor and quick wit into trial proceedings when I can. I think it helps a lot with my rapport with the jury. And the other thing is, you've got to be the beacon for them for the truth. They've got to trust you, they've got to believe you, which means you've got to own up to the bad sides of your case. And you've got to explain why they should be going your way despite the evidence that the other side is trumpeting.

A lot of lawyers never really learn how to deal with that. They wait and they don't bring up the bad evidence, because they don't want to talk about it. And then the other side brings it up and then it looks like you've been hiding things from the jury. A case that I just tried, one of the best pieces of evidence for the other side was one of my very first slides for the jury in opening. That was a very intentional decision because I wanted the jury to see what they were going to see and to get my spin on it from the very beginning.