A Profile
in pro f e s s i o n a l i s m
T
Vivian King Chief of Staff, Harris County District Attorney’s Office
enacious. Relentless. Stubborn. Three synonyms with wildly different connotations. My challenge to you is to press on, no matter what others say. After graduating from UH in accounting in 1980, I focused on a career in modernizing finance. But banking was a lonely place for a Black woman, so after a decade I got my J.D. The Harris County DA’s Office recruited me from TSU because of my accounting background, and three years later I left to start my own practice. Law was also a lonely place, but I just focused on the work. I vowed to be the most well-prepared attorney in court. I studied great lawyers to learn to win. My goal was to get results. I worked hard and was the second Black woman in Texas to be Board Certified in Criminal Law. In 2011, I was awarded Lawyer of the Year by both the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association. In the four years that I have been Chief of Staff for DA Kim Ogg, we have gotten results. We streamlined the restitution process to fix a $2 million backlog. We’ve now sent crime victims $30 million in restitution. Our office has focused on recruiting incredible lawyers from around the country. By widening our search, we increased diversity and are now more diverse than the state bar and the Houston bar. Wherever you are, you can make change happen. It may be lonely, and you may get called stubborn, dogged or worse, but getting results is its own reward.
thehoustonlawyer.com
September/October 2020
41
