Texas Rising Stars 2012

Most significant was the time Heydenburk spent with his grandfather, whose son David Iglesias is believed to have been the first Kuna descendant to practice law in the U.S. (A Navy JAG prosecutor, Iglesias worked on the 1986 case that later became the basis of A Few Good Men, starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson.)

“My grandfather was the youngest of 13 children and his parents decided that he would be the first to go to the U.S. to get an education,” says Heydenburk, whose father, a former pilot for the Air Force, then United Airlines, is of German-American ancestry.

Claudio Iglesias was sent to an orphanage in Oklahoma, where he lived until he was 26, then married a woman from Georgia and moved back to Panama to convert other Kunas to Christianity.

The Kuna language had been strictly oral until Heydenburk’s grandfather, who passed away in 2005, painstakingly translated it into written form. He wanted his people to be able to read the New Testament. Using the English alphabet and devising new letters for sounds that had no counterpart, Iglesias drafted the rule of the written language. In a way, his grandson excels in a similar practice.

Heydenburk’s office, decorated by wife Courtney, is a mix of stylishly modern and Kuna culture. The Heydenburks collect molas—the colorful, layered textile art Kuna women stitch and sell. Molas figure heavily in the Kuna matriarchy because they give women financial power.

“The reason Susan was looking for someone who had an affinity for Fort Worth [was] because she was looking for someone who would stick around long enough for her to train up,” says Heydenburk, who has learned much, he says, from his devil’s advocacy sessions with Halsey and Webber.

“I’ve found that one of the best ways to learn is to argue with someone who knows more about the subject than you do,” he says. “I’ll go into their offices and say, ‘ Try to poke holes in the position I’m taking,’ and there’s a lot of give and take. That’s the beauty of a law firm. You’re not just getting one lawyer’s opinion. There’s a value to having a lot of lawyers in one spot, especially if there’s a lot of mutual respect.”