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Rodman Law Office: The Former Marine JAG Who’s Been Board Certified in Personal Injury Since 1994

Jim Rodman spent his twenties as a Judge Advocate General in the United States Marine Corps before ever taking a personal injury case — and it was in the Marines, not law school, that he says he developed his taste for the courtroom. Three decades later, this Austin personal injury attorney has held Texas’s top credential in the field for over 30 years running.

At a Glance: Austin Personal Injury Attorney Overview

Origin & Background

Jim Rodman was born and raised in Odessa, Texas, and came to Austin for his undergraduate degree at the University of Texas, graduating with a BBA in petroleum land management in 1983. He stayed in Austin for law school, earning his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 1986. Rather than joining a firm directly, he commissioned into the U.S. Marine Corps as a Judge Advocate General, an experience the firm credits with shaping his identity as a trial lawyer. He was honorably discharged in 1990, returned to Austin, and worked at the firm now known as Fritz, Byrne, Head and Harrison before opening his own practice in 1996.

In 1994, four years after leaving the Marines, Rodman earned Board Certification in Personal Injury Trial Law from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization — a credential he has held continuously for more than three decades.

Practice Concentration

Rodman Law Office is a boutique, plaintiff-side personal injury firm. Its stated case types are auto and motorcycle collisions, commercial trucking crashes, unsafe and defective products, medical malpractice, and business and consumer fraud claims. The firm is structured around Rodman personally handling client matters rather than routing cases to a large team of associates, consistent with its self-description as a small practice offering “many of the benefits of a bigger firm, but with more personalized, one-on-one attention.”

Notable Work

Rodman Law Office does not publish a structured settlements-and-verdicts table on its site. Independent client reviews reference successful outcomes in auto collision and premises liability matters, including at least one described as “a sizable settlement in excess of the medical expenses I was seeking,” but exact figures were not independently disclosed in available public sourcing. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case, and the absence of a published results table here is noted as a genuine gap rather than papered over.

Client Voice

Rodman holds an AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell — the highest peer-reviewed distinction — and has earned Martindale’s Client Champion award, based on client review volume and score. A colleague of over 30 years described him on Alignable as someone who brings “a cost-benefit analysis to situations” with “common sense and a practical nature.” Client reviews on Lawyers.com and Avvo describe him as thorough and personally engaged: one client wrote that Rodman “was very professional, yet seemed to personally care about my case,” and another credited him and his assistant for guiding them through a successful out-of-court settlement. No independent negative reviews of substance were located during this research.

Beyond the Courtroom

Rodman has been an active member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) since 2011, an invitation-only trial-lawyer organization that requires a balanced record of both plaintiff and defense trial experience for membership eligibility, along with a commitment to preserving the right to civil jury trial.

Recognition

Rodman holds Board Certification in Personal Injury Trial Law from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, first earned in 1994 — a credential the Texas Board reports fewer than 3% of Texas attorneys hold, and the only “specialist” designation used anywhere in this profile, because it is the one credential in this firm’s record that is independently state-administered rather than privately conferred. He carries Martindale-Hubbell’s AV Preeminent peer-review rating and its Client Champion (Platinum-tier eligible) client-service distinction. These recognitions are peer-review and state-board based rather than firm self-description.

Texas Legal Backdrop

Texas personal injury claims are generally subject to a two-year statute of limitations under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003, running from the date of injury (or, for a wrongful death claim, from the date of death). Texas follows a modified comparative-fault rule under Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 33: a claimant found more than 50% responsible for their own injury is barred from recovering any damages, while a claimant at 50% or below has their recovery reduced in proportion to their share of fault. Claims against government entities carry separate, often much shorter notice deadlines under the Texas Tort Claims Act — as short as a matter of months, and sometimes shorter still under a specific city’s charter — which is one of the most common ways an otherwise valid injury claim gets lost before it’s ever filed. This is general background information, not legal advice, and does not account for the specific facts of any case.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Thirty years of continuous board certification in the same specialty is a genuinely durable credential — it has to be earned once through rigorous exam and peer review, then actively maintained through recertification, which filters out attorneys who let a marketing claim outlive their actual practice focus. Combined with an AV Preeminent rating and a clean public review record, Rodman Law Office reads as a solidly credentialed, if quiet, boutique.

The honest trade-off: this is a small, one-lawyer-centered practice, not a firm built to run several large cases simultaneously or to match the marketing reach of Austin’s higher-volume PI advertisers. The firm’s own published results are thin — there’s no public settlements table to point to, which makes it harder for a prospective client to benchmark outcomes the way they could with a firm that publishes detailed case results. That’s a real gap worth asking about directly in a consultation, not a reason to discount thirty years of board certification and a clean peer-review record.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was compiled from Rodman Law Office’s own website (rodmanlawoffice.com), the Justia and Avvo attorney directories, Lawyers.com’s Martindale-Hubbell-sourced client reviews and peer ratings, Alignable business recommendations, and the BBB business profile for the firm. No misconduct or disciplinary history was found in available public sourcing.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independently researched legal directory. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by Rodman Law Office prior to publication. Awesome Attorneys may in the future offer sponsored placement products to firms profiled on this site, but sponsorship status has no bearing on editorial content, and inclusion in this directory is not an endorsement of any firm for any particular legal matter. Nothing in this profile constitutes legal advice or a lawyer referral; readers with a legal question should consult a licensed Texas attorney directly.