Balch & Bingham, LLP
1901 Sixth Avenue North, Suite 1500
Birmigham, AL 35203
(205)226-3492 /  

Houston graduated cum laude in 2005 from the University of Alabama School of Law, and also graduated cum laude with honors from the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a BS in Civil Engineering in 2002. He has been an associate with Balch & Bingham, LLP in Birmingham since 2005, and practices in Litigation and Governmental Relations. In his litigation practice, he assists the firm in general real estate matters and complex reservoir management matters involving the application of real estate law, as well as the guidelines established by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requirements and the United States Army Corps of Engineers. He also assists in defense of matters involving personal injury and death arising out of products liability, negligence, and wantonness claims. Houston assists the firm in Governmental Relations by drafting, reviewing and analyzing legislation, developing legislation strategy for passage, defeat or amendment of legislation, advising clients regarding federal and state ethics law, Alabama lobbying laws and federal and state campaign finance laws as well as laws relating to federal and state political committees.

Houston is involved in the Alabama Defense Lawyers Association by serving on the Young Lawyers Section Executive Committee. He is also a member of the Birmingham Bar Association and participated in the 2011 Future Leaders Forum, as well as held the vice-presidency role of the Public Service Committee of the Young Lawyers Section. He is Chair of the African American Initiative through Balch & Bingham’s Diversity Committee, Chairs the Governance Committee through the Board of Directors of Pathways, and Chairs the Lawyer Outreach Committee of the Board of Directors with the Birmingham Volunteer Lawyers Program’s Executive Committee. Houston was involved with the Leadership UAB, Class of 2009, was a UAB Pre-Law Advisory Board Member, and was on the Diversity Committee for the Defense Research Institute.

The attorney who recommended Houston said, “As you know, the Birmingham Bar Association and our state court judges, principally the Hon. Scott Vowell, have reinvented our Volunteer Lawyers Program in the past two years. A big part of that turnaround is the result of hard work by the new VLP Board members. Houston Smith has been a leading voice on the VLP Board for the past year and a half, and has been a regular volunteer at organizing and participating in pro bono legal clinics conducted under the auspices of the Birmingham Volunteer Lawyers Program. In addition to his work with the VLP, Houston has been active in the Young Lawyers’ Section of the Birmingham Bar Association, the most active section of our Association. He is currently President-Elect of the YLS. He is a real star of our Bar Association and would be a great candidate for your program.”

In his own words Houston, said, “Wading through the daily grind of civil litigation, I was only exposed to those who practiced what I practiced and those who worked where I worked - at a large, general practice, civil defense firm. Our problems and frustrations were similar. Service on the YLS Executive Committee exposed me to a broad range of different interests – domestic, small firm, plaintiffs, in-house counsel, etc. – within the bar, each with a unique set of problems, but each with a different perspective on my perceived problems. While working throughout the year on the different issues facing the Executive Committee, I recognized that there were a number of opportunities for young lawyers to get involved with junior boards and charitable funding efforts, but there was little opportunity for lawyers to perform service work. I decided to run for Vice-President of Public Service for the YLS, hoping to increase opportunities for Birmingham’s young lawyers to participate in non-legal service projects. Initially, my focus was on non-legal service projects such as taking food to the homeless shelters, working on Habitat houses and assisting with nature preserve clean-ups. At best, we marginally achieved my initial goals; instead, through an unexpected turn of events, we found a more valuable and sustainable way for lawyers to serve. Due to my role as VP of Public Service, I was approached by an attorney with the Legal Aid Society, and a member of the state bar’s VLP section requesting a meeting to discuss ways to increase young lawyer participation in pro bono efforts. I did not expect this meeting to change my perspective on the role that lawyers play in our community. Prior to the meeting, I just thought lawyers needed to be more active in the community. Burdened with billable hours and my own commitments, and recognizing through my experience on the Executive Committee the obligations of young lawyers in other segments of the bar, I came prepared to push back on any efforts to increase the time demands on young lawyers. Sure, there may be a need for pro bono work, but we were all busy, and the matters were outside of our specialty and too time-consuming. During this meeting I learned what I now believe to be the essential responsibility for lawyers within our community – we must ‘maintain’ the legal system. We are the plumbers of the legal system; we keep the pipes clean so the system runs like it is designed to run. Following the state bar’s successful campaign to enhance the legal community’s participation in pro bono efforts, it seems somewhat cliché to identify pro bono service as an issue that lawyers need to address. But the recent campaign was focused on ‘access to justice,’ and while there is no more rewarding role that a lawyer can play, the problem lawyers must address is much greater. Maintenance of the legal system is not merely about access to justice for the one individual, though that individual often appreciates the help more than any paying client, it is access to justice for the community. To increase young lawyer participation, we first tried to identify the major concerns young lawyers have with pro bono work: (a) the legal work was too complicated, (b) there was no training for it, (c) it took too long, and (d) there was nobody to turn to with problems. To address those issues, we came up with the idea of a joint legal clinic hosted by Birmingham VLP and YLS. We held the inaugural YLS/BVLP Pro Bono Clinic and Free CLE during the summer of 2009. It served a significant number of needy clients, but we did not provide the experience for young lawyers that we planned. Even so, the project laid the groundwork for subsequent, more successful clinics. In 2010, a revitalized BVLP held a second, and vastly improved YLS clinic. In addition, the BVLP added additional clinics, expanding the format and taking on more complicated matters – contested divorce and bankruptcy – to be handled by attorneys who typically practice in those arenas. The clinic model serves a large number of clients, and efficiently assists the legal system. Not only does this help the individuals served, but more importantly, it helps the system. We have begun to make significant progress toward resolving some of the unsettled legal issues that plague our community, but there is work to be done. We must change the fabric of the legal community statewide. We have to see pro bono service as a part of our duty to the legal system and the community. It starts with each local bar association, in each community. I see the Leadership Forum as an opportunity to learn how each legal community maintains its local system, to share struggles, and to work together to find ways to achieve better results. More importantly, I look forward to the Leadership Forum as an opportunity to learn from a set of attorneys who come from different communities and different segments of the profession. Working together, sharing similar experiences through different lenses, I hope that we can identify the challenges that face the legal community, and the larger community, as we move forward together.”