Texas Rising Stars 2012

on a jury. His client, a waste management
truck driver, had rear-ended another
vehicle. The driver of that vehicle, who had
suffered minor injuries, according to Cole,
told the jury that, among other things, the
accident had made it next to impossible
for him to play with his son. The jury wasn’t
sympathetic, and they returned a verdict of
“guilty” in favor of Cole’s client even though,
Cole says with a chuckle, their task was to
answer only yes or no to the question, “Do
you find the driver negligent?”
“They didn’t award any damages at all,
so we won the case,” says Cole.

“Sometimes Toby looks more injured than our client,” says Midani. “It shouldn’t be that way, but it’s something that just happens and we have to be careful of it, especially doing personal injury.” Midani first met Cole while opposing him on a case. Cole impressed him with his ability to connect with Midani’s client during a deposition. After the case was settled, Midani joked that Cole should contact him if he ever wanted to represent plaintiffs. Cole seized the opportunity and joined the firm in 2005 to focus on personal injury cases.

One of his first clients was 23-year-old
Tyson Dever, who was rendered paraplegic
after his car was hit by a cement mixer. “I
was Toby’s client, and there was work to be
done, and he took care of that,” says Dever,
who today is a motivational speaker. “But
there were also times where Toby would
just pick up the phone and ask how I was
doing. After living life able-bodied for 22
years, there’s a lot of questions that come
up. Toby was a great resource for me. It
wasn’t just a client-lawyer relationship, and
that just shows that Toby truly cares about
his clients. He cares about what he does,
and he takes it very seriously.”
That same year Cole began representing
Kevin Smith-Idol, a civilian contractor for
KBR Inc. who was shot in the knee and
hip during the ongoing 2004 Good Friday
attacks in Iraq, when Iraqi insurgents
ambushed KBR’s convoy of military
supply trucks. The case, along with two
other cases, received national attention
in part because of the injured contractors’
inability to collect benefits from insurer
AIG. In the end, Smith-Idol won all of his
entitled benefits (the companion cases are
on appeal). “Knowing guys like Kevin are
entitled to these benefits, it’s just horrific,”
Cole says. “They worked overseas because
they wanted to do their part. Then they get
hurt, and AIG just flatly refuses to pay any
of their benefits or lost wages.”
Cole attends monthly support group
meetings for spinal cord injury patients
at Quentin Mease, and acts as a mentor,
a resource for information, and, says
occupational therapist Myrla Vanegas, a
source of hope, especially for the newly
injured. “Their whole world has stopped,”
she says. “But then comes Toby. People
can see in him more than what they can
see here. They can see a future in Toby.”
For Cole, the time he spends at both
facilities is a way to give back. “I was so lucky.
I had so much family, so much support,” he
says. What Cole enjoys most about being a
volunteer and a mentor is getting to spend
time with each person and, if he’s lucky, to
share in their journey from “the front end,
when they’re so scared, to months or years
later, when they’re stronger. I just love it.”
But the challenge these days, says Cole,
is always the next case, the next client.
“This is the person I need to help now. This
is the family I need to help now. It’s the
fight that I have coming up that’s always
the most challenging.”