Personal Background
Sam E. Taylor II joined the Lanier Law Firm in 2014 and serves as Senior Litigation Counsel at the firm. Sam has been board-certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization for over 25 years and board-certified in Civil Trial Law by the National Board of Trial Advocacy for over 24 years. Additionally, he has received statewide recognition. In statewide surveys published in Texas Monthly magazine, Mr. Taylor was named one of the Top Attorneys in Texas, and he has been selected to the Texas Super Lawyers list every year since 2008. Less than 5% of the attorneys in Texas are chosen for the Texas Super Lawyers. Sam has also achieved an AV Preeminent Rating for over 25 consecutive years through a strenuous peer review rating process by Martindale-Hubbell, the premier attorney rating service in the United States. An AV Preeminent Rating is the highest possible in legal ability and ethical standards. Recently, Mr. Taylor was nominated and selected as a Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation.
Mr. Taylor attended law school at the University of Texas School of Law. While in law school, he worked in the opinions division of the Texas Attorney General’s Office. While attending undergraduate school at Tarleton State University, Mr. Taylor obtained invaluable experience in government when he dedicated a semester to working full time as an administrative assistant to Senator Bob Glasgow in the Texas Senate during the 69th Texas Legislative Session.
Mr. Taylor places great value on approaching every client relationship with authenticity and honesty, taking care to understand each unique experience. He believes that kind of genuine connection is what allows clients to trust him with some of the most difficult moments of their lives. A strong believer in public service, Mr. Taylor has also donated much of his time to serving on various boards and committees. He has served as a commissioner on his local planning and zoning commission, the high school athletic booster club board of directors, the livestock association board of directors, the CASA board of directors, and as a coach and mentor for numerous parks and recreation programs for youth. Mr. Taylor also successfully ran for public office twice when he was elected to the city council. In his free time, Mr. Taylor enjoys spending time outdoors, particularly running and playing golf, as well as spending time with his children and grandchildren.
Transcript:
Sam Taylor:
My name is Sam Taylor. I have been practicing law since 1988. I graduated from the University of Texas Law School in December of 1987. I’ve been board certified in personal injury trial law and civil trial law since 1999. So most of my career I’ve handled pretty much exclusively personal injury cases, similar to asbestos cases.
I began working at the Lanier Law Firm in October of 2014. I’m currently the managing attorney of the asbestos section of the law firm. I manage a team of lawyers and staff whose sole case responsibility is asbestos cases, mesothelioma and lung cancer cases. In essence, that’s all we do. Every single day, we are looking at medical records, we are looking at asbestos exposure histories. We have an extensive electronic digital library of documents going back 30 years from which we draw on in every case.
If we identify a defendant that is going to be in our case, I can already know that within our digital library, we have documents, depositions, photographs, a lot of evidence pertaining to that company and every company that we encounter in this litigation. My team specializes in this type of litigation, and that’s the best way we can serve our clients, is the expertise that we bring in making these companies accountable for their conduct.
Representative Cases
Mr. Taylor has over 30 years of experience representing clients in state and federal courts. He has successfully tried to verdicts in over 50 civil jury trials in state district courts and federal district courts. As lead counsel, he has tried over 40 personal injury jury trials, including cases involving mesothelioma caused by asbestos exposure, wrongful death, quadriplegia, serious burns, brain injuries, and other serious personal injuries. As lead counsel, he has handled serious personal injury cases involving truck wrecks, automobile and motorcycle accidents, train crossings, medical and dental malpractice, and construction site injuries. He was lead counsel in a successful class action certification hearing against IBM. Mr. Taylor has also tried as lead counsel in multiple child custody jury trials and served as a co-lead attorney in a fourteen-day capital murder jury trial.
Camp Mystic
Mr. Taylor currently represents six families who lost their daughters in the July 2025 flooding at Camp Mystic in Kerr County, Texas, when rising waters from the Guadalupe River claimed the lives of 27 young girls. Mr. Taylor is seeking justice for these families, arguing that the camp failed to maintain adequate emergency evacuation plans and failed to evacuate campers in time to prevent this tragedy.
For more information on Camp Mystic see below:
- Families of 6 Girls File Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Camp Mystic Following July Flood – The Lanier Law Firm
- The Lanier Law Firm Responds to Camp Mystic’s Withdrawal of 2026 License Application
UPS Aircraft Crash
Mr. Taylor represents the widow of Dana Diamond, a pilot who was killed in a plane crash in November 2025. Mr. Diamond was flying a Boeing MD-11F on a long-haul cargo flight bound for Hawaii when, shortly after takeoff, the aircraft’s left engine separated from the wing, causing the plane to crash. The crash claimed the lives of all three crew members aboard, as well as 12 people on the ground. For more information about the UPS plane crash, see here.
Wrongful Death
Mr. Taylor joined Ben Crump as co-lead counsel representing the family of Zion Branch, a 19-year-old killed when a truck crashed into the Atascocita, Texas bakery where she worked. Taylor and the legal team are investigating the circumstances of the crash, including whether adequate safety measures, such as bollards, could have prevented the tragedy, as they seek accountability on behalf of the Branch family.
Oil Well Explosion
Mr. Taylor is representing an individual who suffered a major brain injury due to an oil well explosion in West Texas.