Jamal Alsaffar, Lead Plaintiff's Attorney in Sutherland Springs Church Mass-Shooting Civil Case, Reflects on Trial Strategy

Alsaffar Touts Work-Life Balance as Key to Long Career

Jamal Alsaffar knew he wanted to be a trial lawyer before he was out of high school.

“I was always good at arguing, and then I read To Kill a Mockingbird and I wanted to be Atticus Finch,” he said. “I wanted to represent people against powerful interests.”

And there’s no more powerful interest in the world than the United States federal government.

Alsaffar was appointed lead attorney representing the plaintiffs in the civil case resulting from the Sutherland Springs Church mass shooting in November 2017.

The Department of Justice settled all claims on April 5, 2023, agreeing to pay $144.5 million to the 75 plaintiffs, who alleged the United States was negligent for failing to report a convicted felon to the National Criminal Background Check System. This information, the plaintiffs alleged, and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas–San Antonio Division agreed, would have prevented the shooter from purchasing guns from a federally licensed firearms dealer.

“Immediately when this shooting happened, my wife said, ‘We have to do something,’” Alsaffar said.

Alsaffar and his wife, Laurie Higginbotham, are both partners with National Trial Law in Austin.

“People ask, ‘Why did you take this case?’ and I say, ‘Because I was mad,’” Alsaffar said.

Higginbotham formed the initial framework for the case. The plaintiffs, many survivors of the Sutherland Springs shooting, as well as the victims’s families, then joined the case. Alsaffar litigated and tried the case with his other partner at the firm, Tom Jacob, who was instrumental in winning the case.

“The biggest challenge was fighting the resources of the federal government,” Alsaffar said. “They brought all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to defend the case.”

National Trial Law handled most of the litigation and both trials.

“The most important thing to these families was that we made the country safer,” Alsaffar said.

According to Alsaffar, one of the biggest surprises of the case was that the federal government decided to try it.

“We just had overwhelming evidence that the government had extensive knowledge of the shooter’s threat to the community,” Alsaffar said. “He was threatening mass shootings when he was in the Air Force, and he was institutionalized twice and tried to escape while in the Air Force. They knew he’d raped six or seven women. We proved they knew all of that in trial.”

The families had to endure two trials: one for liability and one for damages. Each month-and-a-half trial forced them to relive the pain.

Another challenge Alsaffar identified was organizational: Alsaffar was appointed lead attorney, but only represented about a third of the plaintiffs. The others had their own representation, totaling about 20 other lawyers.

“Being appointed lead lawyer is humbling, especially when these other lawyers were some of the best in the country,” Alsaffar said. “They had to trust me as lead counsel, which was difficult because we all had our own ideas about how this case should be handled. I had to earn their trust, so I made sure I was as transparent as possible and was always in communication with them.”

Alsaffar said the most important aspect in working with so many other attorneys is a commitment to cohesion.

“There have been a lot of other cases where the lawyers fight or don’t get along,” Alsaffar said. “That division hurts the case and the clients. But this group was so great to work with. They understood the enormity of what we were doing. As much as a challenge as it was having so many attorneys in one case, it really goes to show how committed to this case everyone was. Nothing the defendants did divided us.”

Alsaffar’s trial strategy involved trying to tell the stories of all the affected families in a way that would not numb the judge to the horror of the shooting.

“You can get numb to it if there’s too much information,” Alsaffar said. “We spent a lot of time with every single family member, structuring the case to be both impactful and efficient, and choosing which family member would be the best to tell their story.”

At the end of the damages trial, the court ordered the federal government to pay more than $230 million to the plaintiffs. The government appealed this amount, which was eventually settled for $144.5 million.

Beyond the monetary outcome, Alsaffar said he is satisfied with the legal outcomes of the case.

“We found that, for 30 years, the federal government was negligent in reporting criminal records to the background check system,” he said. “Because of these families’ bravery and willingness to bring this lawsuit, the F.B.I. has added almost 20 million criminal records to the background check system run by the Bureau and used by licensed gun dealers. We’ve had a federal court rule that background checks do prevent mass shootings. Will they prevent all gun violence? No. Laws against murder don’t either. But they severely reduce them.”

The case went on for five and a half years. During that time, Alsaffar faced challenges the likes of which he’d never experienced, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, which made an already difficult case even harder.

“Trial is one of the most stressful things your body can go through,” he said. “You don’t sleep, your adrenaline is at a ridiculously high level for a long time, you’re stressed because you care, and you’re also focusing on a tragedy. Multiply all that by 20 in this case.”

To handle the stress of this case, but also any trial, Alsaffar said, it’s important to be intentional about your health, as well as balancing your home life with your profession.

“To have a long career as a trial lawyer, it’s important to be balanced,” Alsaffar said. “Even when it seems impossible to do it. For example, before some of the big arguments in this case, I would be sitting at the kitchen table late at night working. And I’d tell my oldest son, who was preparing for college at the time, to come sit with me to study for his exams. And a lot of the time, we’d stay up past midnight together. Even when you’re working, you can share those experiences with family because they’re the most important thing.”

Alsaffar encourages young lawyers and law students to practice work-life balance as soon as possible.

“You can’t be a good lawyer if you’re not a healthy and balanced person,” Alsaffar said. “And if you’re in a workplace where you can’t have that balance, then that’s not where you should be.”