About JoDee Neil (From her website Jodeeneil.com)

Some people choose the law. Others are chosen by it. For me, becoming a lawyer was something I knew deep in my bones from the time I was five years old.
And from the moment I first argued into a courtroom, I knew this was where I belonged – using my voice to stand up for people who needed someone in their corner. 
That sense of purpose remains with me to this day.

I grew up in Dallas, tagging along after my father, a board-certified family and criminal trial lawyer. He lived his life in and out of courtrooms, cowboy hat and boots on.  By the time I was thirteen, I was already helping out around the office. I soon learned the rhythms of a legal practice, and what it meant to stand beside someone when the system towered over them.

My career began in the Collin County District Attorney’s Office, where the trial court became my second home. On my second day, I conducted a Voir Dire, and soon I was trying more cases than anyone else in my division. That pace and intensity showed me I was exactly where I was meant to be – not just “Wild Bill’s daughter,” but a powerful trial lawyer in my own right.

It wasn’t long before I was assigned to the Crimes Against Children Division. At 27, I was the youngest prosecutor handling those cases. The cases were heartbreaking, and the emotional toll was heavy. But I learned how to shoulder it without losing compassion, and that shaped the lawyer I am today.

After several years, I left Dallas and moved to Singapore. But without the courtroom, I was adrift. I found work with an NGO focused on child trafficking and continued work that I began while seving as an Assistant DA–  my book, Outcry Witness. It would take me nearly twenty years to finish, but its seed took root during that period of loss and longing for meaningful legal work.

When I returned to Texas, now a mother of two young girls, my criminal trial experience still qualified me for serious felony defense appointments, but instead the civil firm where I worked assigned me to the opioid litigation where I represented counties against major pharmaceutical companies. That work became some of the most significant of my career, helping to bring billions of dollars in settlements into Texas.

Today, my practice looks different. I no longer measure my work in the number of trials I try or the settlements I secure. Instead, I focus on a niche that has always been at the heart of my calling: children. Whether it’s consulting on daycare and Montessori school cases, supporting families in conflict with CPS, or amplifying the voices of young people in systems that rarely hear them, my goal is the same as it was when I stood beside those survivors years ago – to make sure kids are seen, heard, and protected.

As a lawyer, I know the power of standing in a courtroom and telling a child, “You are brave. You are believed.”

My mission now is broader than individual cases. I believe that protecting children is the key to advancing humanity itself. A society that ignores its young cannot expect to thrive. Too often, parents, institutions, and even legal systems lose sight of that simple truth. My work is about bringing us back to it.

I started this journey in my father’s office, but after decades of trials, tears, victories, betrayals, and countless hours spent listening to the stories of children, I understand why I felt called so young. The law has always been about protecting the most vulnerable. That is the purpose I was given, and it is the purpose I carry forward.