Texas Bar Journal • July/August 2024

Principled

State Bar of Texas President Steve Benesh on the value of good, clean hard work and an ethic to work tirelessly.

Interview by Patricia Busa McConnico

Steve Benesh has always been inquisitive. As a child, he would barrage his parents with questions, and they would respond by gesturing toward the family’s set of World Book encyclopedias. Benesh would consult one of the green and white books and try to figure out the answer on his own. It was only after this process that his mother and father would assist him. Later in his childhood, Benesh decided to read the whole set, which he accomplished in one summer. That experience as a child led to a lifelong penchant for investigating an issue thoroughly before making a decision or asking someone else for help—a trait that has suited him well as a lawyer.

But Benesh didn’t originally set out to be a lawyer. Born in San Antonio while his father attended St. Mary’s University School of Law, Benesh spent his formative years in Wichita Falls, his mom’s hometown, where the family moved after his dad graduated. Benesh’s parents divorced when he was fairly young, so he spent most of his time with his mom and the weekends and summers with his father. The youngest of three boys, Benesh learned the importance of hard work at an early age, and beginning his freshman year in high school, he held various after-school jobs, from busing tables at Bennigan’s to wrapping burritos at Taco Bell. His strong work ethic continued in college, where he studied petroleum engineering while holding down a full-time job as a night doorman at a high-rise apartment complex in Austin. But the oil bust in the early 1980s translated to limited job prospects, so Benesh switched his major to business. It was during this time that he began to think of how much his father, who was a judge, enjoyed the legal profession. He remembered asking his father about his cases and how impressed he was that his dad helped his clients through some of the most difficult times in their lives. By his senior year at the University of Texas at Austin, Benesh had decided to study law and moved straight from undergrad to law school at UT.

LEFT: Steve Benesh with his wife, Jennifer, and their two sons (from left) Austin and Will on the beach on Long Island, New York, in July 2022. Photo courtesy of Steve Benesh.

He clerked at Bracewell & Patterson in Houston his second summer in law school and accepted an associate offer. In 1988, Benesh went to work in the Houston office a month after passing the bar exam. He applied that same work ethic and the same principle he learned in college—the one who worked the hardest most often came out on top—to his legal practice. After 12 years in Houston, he transferred to the Austin office, and he and his wife, Jennifer, and their two sons moved to the Texas Hill Country. Benesh has been with Bracewell for more than 36 years, and he believes the most rewarding aspect of his legal practice is getting his clients the result they desired. “A number of my legal matters are bet-the- company cases, where the outcome could potentially affect the jobs and livelihood of a large number of people,” Benesh said. “So, succeeding in what I was hired to do is rewarding.”

On June 21, Benesh was sworn in as president of the State Bar of Texas at the bar’s Annual Meeting in Dallas. Benesh recently talked with the Texas Bar Journal about hisanti reer, role models, and plans as president of the State Bar.

Steve Benesh with his wife, Jennifer, at a gala in Dallas in 2023. Photo courtesy of Steve Benesh.

Who is your legal role model or mentor and what impresses you most about him or her?
Other than my father, my three principal mentors in the law were three partners at Bracewell who took me under their wings when I joined Bracewell fresh out of law school. I was assigned to work for Bill Wilde, a senior trial partner, and he taught me how to serve the firm and our clients. Skip McBride, another Bracewell partner, attended my church, and he was a valued adviser and friend. He taught me how to serve God and the church. Finally, a third Bracewell partner, Kelly Frels, encouraged me to become active in the bar and modeled how to balance the demands of a legal practice, a family, and service to others. He taught me how to serve my family and the profession. It is my great honor to serve as State Bar president exactly 20 years after he did.

What have you found most challenging about being a lawyer?
I have found that the most challenging aspect of practicing law is maintaining a healthy work-life balance. We as lawyers want to “have it all,” but sometimes our clients want it all, and sometimes our families need it all. In the first week after I joined Bracewell in 1988, one of my mentors, Skip McBride, took me to lunch. He told me that the priorities of a legal practice are “faith, family, firm”—always in that order. He said my problems would begin when I forgot the order. I have tried to pattern my entire legal career on that simple piece of advice. But, sometimes, it is easy to keep the three priorities straight, and sometimes it isn’t.

LEFT: Steve Benesh and his family backpacking on the Appalachian Trail in November 2020. Photo courtesy of Steve Benesh.

You campaigned on five goals. Tell us more about them and why they are important to you.
Docket assistance: I would like to work with the State Bar and the Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program to expand the opportunities for docket assistance to attorneys who must step back from their law practices while seeking treatment for mental health or substance use issues from local volunteer lawyers who can keep attorneys’ dockets afloat and clients informed on a temporary basis while lawyers get the help they need.

Electronic filing: I want to work with the Office of Court Administration, the Texas district clerks, the Texas Judicial Committee on Information Technology, and other stakeholders to standardize electronic case filings across all Texas counties. The variability of electronic filing from county to county creates a patchwork quilt of differing protocols that is unnecessarily frustrating to lawyers and their clients.

Website enhancement: I would like to work with the State Bar to make its website easier to navigate and more user- friendly. Among other things, I would like for the State Bar website to include a searchable resource, accessible from the website’s main page, with clear and concise answers to the most common questions asked by lawyers and the general public.

Enhance the grievance process: I would like to examine and implement ways to make the attorney grievance process easier to understand and navigate. Among other things, I would like to see the appointment of a “point person” for every grievance, who can respond to questions by the complainant or respondent, particularly during the investigative phase. I would also like to see greater clarity provided to complainants about their role in a grievance as witnesses and not parties.

Ensure self-regulation of our profession: Being a self- governing legal profession in Texas is a privilege and a blessing. I plan to do all I can to raise awareness both within and without our profession about the many services provided by the State Bar, the opportunities for attorneys across the state to participate in service to the profession, and the benefits of maintaining our self-regulation.

What other areas will you be focusing on this year as state bar president?
At some point during my term, the State Bar’s Taskforce for Responsible AI in the Law will likely complete its final report and recommendations regarding the use of artificial intelligence by Texas attorneys, and we will then need to identify and establish the role of the State Bar in connection with such use. Additionally, the Texas Legislature’s next regular session will convene during my term, and the State Bar will perform its traditional task of monitoring proposed legislation that is germane to the practice of law in Texas. Finally, the Texas Law Center, the State Bar’s headquarters, will celebrate its 50th anniversary during my term, and in conjunction with that, the State Bar will be moving forward with plans to build an education and conference center next to the Texas Law Center to continue meeting our members’ needs.

Steve Benesh with his sons Austin (9) and Will (11) at El Rancho Cima scout camp near Wimberley in 1997. Photo courtesy of Steve Benesh.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
From my father: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!” It is also the advice I have most often imparted to our two sons. It reminds me that the best way—the only way—to tackle a daunting, seemingly overwhelming job or assignment is to break it down into a series of discrete, achievable tasks and then begin knocking them out, one-by- one, focusing upon the single task before me.

What do you think the legal profession will look like 50 years from now?
When I graduated from law school, there were no desktop computers for lawyers at our firm, no laptops, no tablets, no cellphones, no voicemail, no email, no internet. Today, the evolving use of artificial intelligence in our profession and the growing familiarity with remote video technology could alter many things about our practices, from the traditional structure of law firms to the way cases are prepared and tried and deals are conducted and closed. But the real benchmarks of our noble profession are not the tools we use to dispatch our work; they are the manner in which we treat each other as professionals, while ethically advancing our clients’ interests. As long as we, as a legal profession, remain committed to our core principles of civility, integrity, candor, and professionalism, then I am optimistic about the future of the legal industry.