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Whitehurst, Harkness, Brees, Cheng, Alsaffar, Higginbotham & Jacob: Three Board-Certified Partners at One of Austin’s Oldest Plaintiffs’ Firms

Lawyers who have passed through this firm’s doors have gone on to become a Texas Supreme Court Justice, a Texas Court of Appeals Justice, a U.S. Congressman, a state senator, and a mayor of Austin. This Austin personal injury attorney firm has been quietly training that pipeline of talent since the mid-1970s, while three of its own partners individually earned the state’s top credential in personal injury trial law.

At a Glance: Austin Personal Injury Attorney Firm Overview

Origin & Background

The firm traces its roots to the mid-1970s, when Mack Kidd and Bill Whitehurst founded a plaintiffs’ practice in Austin; Tom Harkness joined in 1978 to form Kidd, Whitehurst & Harkness. Eugene “Chip” Brees, who spent nearly 26 years as an insurance-defense lawyer at Thompson & Knight before switching to plaintiff’s work, joined the firm’s roster of name partners. The firm has since grown to include additional named partners — Michelle Cheng, Jamal Alsaffar, and others — while retaining its identity as one of Austin’s longest-running plaintiffs’ firms.

The firm’s own materials note that lawyers who trained there have gone on to serve as a Texas Supreme Court Justice, a Texas Court of Appeals Justice, a U.S. Congressman, a State Senator, and a Mayor of Austin — a lineage the firm cites as evidence of the caliber of trial lawyers it has developed over five decades.

Practice Concentration

The firm handles catastrophic personal injury matters including medical malpractice, birth injury, brain and spinal cord injury, aviation accidents, products liability, and wrongful death, along with general negligence and federal tort claims. Thomas Harkness in particular has built a specialized aviation and products liability practice, including propane and natural gas litigation. The firm states it has the financial capacity to fund complex, resource-intensive litigation on a contingency basis, which it frames as a way to level the playing field against defendants with greater resources.

Notable Work

The firm states it has “a history of achieving record verdicts and settlements in personal injury cases” since its founding, but does not publish a structured, itemized settlements-and-verdicts table on its current site. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case, and the absence of a published results table is noted directly as a gap rather than papered over.

Client Voice

Independent review volume for this firm is thin: its FindLaw listing shows no reviews, and Martindale-Hubbell displays peer endorsements from fellow attorneys rather than a large base of client reviews. One available client review credited partner Eugene Brees with handling “any and all issues related to my case,” describing him as “very specific in asking me for information” through “a long process but in the end very worthwhile.” Peer commentary on partner Michelle Cheng describes her as “an excellent attorney and excellent advocate for her clients” with “a high quality of leadership in the legal community.” This thin public review record is a genuine gap for a 50-year-old firm and is disclosed directly rather than smoothed over.

Beyond the Courtroom

The firm describes long-standing institutional involvement with Volunteer Legal Services of Central Texas, Texas Rural Legal Aid, and the Texas Bar Foundation, along with community organizations including the Austin Children’s Museum, Meals on Wheels, the Austin Children’s Shelter, and local youth sports leagues. Thomas Harkness has served as President of the Foundation of the American Board of Trial Advocates.

Recognition

Three of the firm’s named partners — William O. Whitehurst, Thomas R. Harkness, and Eugene W. Brees II — are each individually Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, the only “specialist” designations used in this profile because they are independently state-administered rather than firm-conferred. All three are also members of the American Board of Trial Advocates. Harkness has been named to Best Lawyers in America and recognized as a Texas Super Lawyer by Texas Monthly since 1995; Brees has been named a Super Lawyer every year since 2003 and is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. These are peer-review and state-board recognitions rather than firm self-description.

Texas Legal Backdrop

Texas personal injury claims generally carry a two-year statute of limitations under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003, and medical malpractice claims specifically carry their own two-year limitations period under Chapter 74 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, with distinct notice and expert-report requirements that don’t apply to ordinary negligence claims — a distinction that matters directly for a firm with this much medical malpractice and birth injury work. 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 recovers nothing, while a claimant at 50% or below has recovery reduced by their share of fault. This is general background information, not legal advice, and does not account for the specific facts of any case.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Three individually board-certified partners in the same specialty at one firm is a genuinely strong concentration of state-verified credentials, and a five-decade track record that has produced a state supreme court justice, a congressman, and an Austin mayor among its alumni speaks to the caliber of lawyers this firm has trained over time. That’s a different, more institutional kind of credibility than a younger boutique can claim.

The honest gap: independently verifiable client reviews are thin for a firm this established, and there’s no published results table to help a prospective client benchmark outcomes directly. For a firm built around catastrophic, often years-long litigation — aviation crashes, birth injuries, complex products liability — that’s a less unusual gap than it would be for a high-volume auto-accident practice, since these clients are fewer in number and cases move slower, but it’s still worth asking about directly in a consultation rather than assuming the firm’s institutional pedigree substitutes for current, verifiable client feedback.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was compiled from the firm’s own website and BCGSearch firm profile, Martindale-Hubbell’s organization and peer-review pages, Super Lawyers attorney profiles, the University of Texas School of Law’s public interest fellowship materials (which detail partner biographies), FindLaw’s directory listing (which showed no reviews), Lawyers.com, and LawyerDB’s firm listing.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independently researched legal directory. This profile was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed by Whitehurst, Harkness, Brees, Cheng, Alsaffar, Higginbotham & Jacob, PLLC 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.