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The Austin Bar Association is proud to announce that its Professionalism Award has been renamed the Sam Johnson Professionalism Award, honoring a longtime Austin Bar member, accomplished trial lawyer, mentor, and friend whose influence extended throughout Austin’s legal community.
Johnson spent nearly four decades at Scott Douglass McConnico, where his practice included representing lawyers and advising them on professional responsibility and legal ethics. But colleagues say his legacy cannot be measured solely by the cases he handled or the legal knowledge he accumulated. It can also be found in the lawyers he mentored, the colleagues he encouraged, the people he helped without expecting anything in return, and the joy he brought into the lives of those around him.
“He treated everyone with dignity and respect,” said Kennon Wooten, Austin Bar past president and partner at Scott Douglass McConnico.
Boone Almanza, name partner at Almanza, Blackburn, Dickie & Mitchell, put it another way: “Sam was never a preacher of professionalism; it was simply the way he lived and practiced.”
Johnson moved to Austin in 1973 and grew up in Central Austin. His father, the Hon. Samuel Dodson Johnson, served on the Texas Supreme Court.
Johnson attended Casis Elementary, Baker Sixth Grade Center, O. Henry Junior High, and Austin High School before leaving Austin to attend Baylor University. He later returned to attend the University of Texas School of Law, where he was a member of the Texas Law Review, Chancellors, and Order of the Coif, and earned his law degree with high honors.
Almanza knew Johnson long before either became a lawyer. The two first met in the halls of Austin High, where Almanza remembers Johnson as a good athlete, exceptional student, and seemingly universal friend.
“He truly was ‘The Man,’” Almanza said.
Johnson played middle linebacker on the football team, competed on the debate team, and, Almanza recalled, moved through the halls with a distinctive sense of purpose while remaining a friend to nearly everyone he encountered.
That combination of achievement and approachability would follow him throughout his life.
After Austin High, Johnson distinguished himself at Baylor and later at Texas Law.
“What defined Sam was his practice of doing everything the right way,” he said.
After law school, Johnson clerked for U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater in Dallas before joining Scott Douglass McConnico in 1990. He would spend the remainder of his legal career there as a trial lawyer.
But Johnson’s connection to the firm actually began before law school.
Firm co-founder Steve McConnico first met Johnson when Johnson was in ninth grade. Years later, Johnson worked at the firm during the summer before beginning law school.
McConnico recalled that firm partner Frank Douglass was so impressed that he wanted to offer Johnson a position as a lawyer before Johnson had even started law school. Recruiting partner Flip Whitworth suggested they might want to see how Johnson performed in law school first.
According to McConnico, Douglass responded that they already knew exactly how Johnson would do: “Great, just like he does everything else.”
The firm made the offer. Four years later, after completing his federal clerkship, Johnson accepted it.
McConnico and Johnson would spend decades working together. Their friendship extended well beyond the office: skiing, backpacking, attending Baylor football and basketball games, reading the same books, and sharing both the celebrations and disappointments of life.
Asked for the words that come to mind when remembering Johnson, McConnico offered a list that captures the contradictions that made his friend distinctive: “Goofy, wicked smart, earnest, hard-working, practical, fun-loving, spontaneous, no pretense, penny-pinching, generous, a little clumsy, and very lovable.”
Almanza remembers the same exuberance.
“Sam Johnson was a happy, fun-loving guy who embraced life every day with kindness, exuberance, and unmistakable charisma,” he said. “He rarely, if ever, spoke an unkind word about anyone.”
And then there was Johnson’s laugh.
“His laugh was infectious and throaty,” Almanza said, “and it still echoes in my ears to this day when I think of him.”
Johnson became particularly knowledgeable in legal malpractice and ethics, and a significant part of his practice involved defending lawyers and counseling them through difficult professional situations.
“No one knew legal malpractice law better than Sam,” McConnico said.
But Johnson’s effectiveness came from more than technical expertise. He took the time to understand the lawyers he represented, their clients, and the difficult real-world decisions that had led to a dispute.
Almanza, who had the opportunity to work with Johnson early in his own career, saw those qualities firsthand.
Johnson used his legal skills, judgment, and intellect ethically and courteously, Almanza said, including when difficult situations presented an easier path.
“He was straightforward, credible, and reliable in his approach to the law,” Almanza said. “That grounded approach, combined with his sharp intellect, made him an exceptional attorney.”
His willingness to share that knowledge extended far beyond paying clients.
Johnson devoted countless pro bono hours to educating lawyers and law students about avoiding malpractice claims and disciplinary grievances. Friends remember him as someone lawyers routinely called when they had questions about ethics or the Texas Disciplinary Rules.
Longtime friend and Austin attorney Douglass Hearne was responsible for many of those calls.
“I don’t know how many attorneys I referred to Sam over the past 40 years who had a ‘simple, quick’ question about ethics,” Hearne said.
Of course, the questions were rarely simple or quick, but Johnson answered them anyway.
He responded patiently, Hearne recalled, without judgment, anger, or any expectation that he would receive something in return.
Before personal computers and the internet put information at everyone’s fingertips, Hearne said, people generally had two reliable places to find an answer: the library and the encyclopedia.
“For a blessed few,” he said, “we had a third source: Sam Johnson.”
Whether the question involved history, politics, a recent court decision, or the law, Johnson had an unusual ability to absorb complicated information and explain it in terms others could understand.
That instinct to teach became one of the defining characteristics of Johnson’s life.
“First and foremost, Sam loved mentoring, and he was exceptionally good at it,” Hearne said.
Education had particular significance to Johnson. Despite his considerable academic accomplishments—finishing near the top of his Austin High School class, earning a 4.0 at Baylor, and excelling at Texas Law—Johnson had significant dyslexia.
Hearne said few people knew how much additional work Johnson had to put into not merely learning material, but mastering it.
Perhaps because of that experience, he became an enthusiastic advocate for education in almost any form.
Johnson encouraged people to pursue opportunities whether their interests were in law, teaching, welding, or another field. One of his frequently repeated observations was that earning a degree might be extraordinarily difficult, but once you earned it, nobody could take it away from you.
His own accomplishments never translated into self-importance.
“Sam never had sharp elbows,” Hearne said.
Rather than stepping over classmates or colleagues to get ahead, Hearne remembered Johnson as the person holding the door open for them, encouraging them as they went through it.
That quality remained with him throughout his career.
Wooten remembers working as an associate on a complex trial involving a large legal team. Johnson was already a longtime partner and busy with other matters, but volunteered to help.
When Wooten later found herself with some extra time, she offered to take Johnson’s assignment back so he could go home.
Johnson refused.
“No way! I’ve got this! Take the night off. You’ve earned it!” Wooten remembers him saying.
She tried to object, but he insisted.
“It did not matter that he was a partner and I was an associate,” Wooten said. “What mattered to Sam was fulfilling his commitment and ensuring that people on his team got the rest they needed, no matter their rank.”
Years later, she still thinks about the encounter and the example it provided for her own leadership.
Almanza experienced something similar working alongside Johnson early in his career. Watching Johnson exercise judgment, integrity, and restraint, he said, established a standard for the younger lawyers around him—not because Johnson lectured them about how lawyers should behave, but because he demonstrated it.
Johnson’s professionalism did not manifest as formality. His friends describe someone spontaneous, enthusiastic, approachable, occasionally disheveled, and almost entirely without ego.
Wooten remembers one of his favorite sayings: “Be a Tigger, not an Eeyore!”
Another frequent Johnson response was simply: “Super!”
Hearne remembers a man who could be spotted in a crowded restaurant, enthusiastically cheering for his twin daughters, Page and Ella, at volleyball games, and interacting naturally with people of every age.
Almanza remembers the less polished details, too.
Johnson was hardly perfect, he joked. His office and lunch habits were rumored to be disastrous, and his signature red vest may have served a purpose beyond keeping him warm.
“We all knew his signature red vest wasn’t just for comfort—it was a tactical tool to cover up a number of writing and food sins,” Almanza said.
It was part of the same absence of pretense his friends remember so clearly: an exceptionally accomplished lawyer who never seemed particularly interested in looking like one.
His enthusiasm could be infectious, but it existed alongside deeply held principles.
Hearne remembers that streak emerging when Johnson was only 10 or 11 years old.
In fifth grade, Johnson’s teacher was discussing the Civil War and presenting a version of history that minimized slavery’s role in the conflict. Johnson repeatedly challenged her account.
The result was repeated trips into the hallway, but Johnson kept challenging her anyway.
Even as a child, Hearne said, Johnson valued the truth enough to challenge authority when he believed authority was wrong—and accept the consequences without sulking.
Decades later, the same combination of conviction and generosity characterized his legal career.
Johnson represented at least three aspiring lawyers whom the Board of Law Examiners initially would not allow to sit for the bar because of delinquency during their adolescence. McConnico said Johnson “had a soft spot for juvenile delinquents.”
He took the cases pro bono, and in each case, he persuaded the Board to reverse its decision. The students passed the bar and were sworn in as lawyers.
Wooten said Johnson “epitomized professionalism in all walks of life.”
He did not resort to aggression to win an argument or a case. He treated opposing counsel respectfully even in intense disputes. As his firm’s general counsel, he made himself available when other lawyers needed to talk through an ethics question or simply needed a sounding board.
And he made people feel valued.
“Sam had a way of elevating environments,” Wooten said. “He spread joy through his greetings and encouraging words. He helped people feel seen and appreciated.”
For Almanza, those qualities are precisely why Johnson’s name belongs on the award.
“It is fitting that the Austin Bar is naming the professionalism award after Sam because he was a true professional in every sense of the word—in the way he conducted himself, in the way he interacted with others and the way he practiced law,” he said.
Hearne noted that the recipients of the Austin Bar’s Professionalism Award comprise a “who’s who” of Travis County legal and civic leaders. Many knew Johnson personally.
He believes they would support putting Johnson’s name on the honor.
McConnico and Johnson’s colleagues at Scott Douglass McConnico feel the same.
“The lawyers and staff at Scott Douglass and McConnico are grateful the Professionalism Award has been named for Sam,” McConnico said. “Sam not only made us better lawyers, he made us better people.”
That may ultimately explain why the Sam Johnson Professionalism Award is an appropriate way to preserve his legacy.
Johnson was an accomplished lawyer, but accomplishment alone is not professionalism. He was extraordinarily knowledgeable, but knowledge alone is not professionalism. He won cases, counseled lawyers, taught students, mentored colleagues, and served his profession, but even those achievements tell only part of the story.
Professionalism is also what happens when a longtime partner insists that an associate take the night off. It is answering another lawyer’s supposedly “quick” ethics question without watching the clock. It is helping a young person get a second chance. It is treating an adversary with respect. It is holding the door open rather than racing through it first.
It is, as Almanza observed about Johnson, doing things the right way even when circumstances offer an easier route.
It is being excellent without needing everyone else to know that you are.
Shortly before learning of Johnson’s death, Wooten had watched Superman. In retrospect, she said, the timing seemed fitting.
“Sam truly was a super man.”
Almanza has his own phrase for the friend he first met roaming the halls of Austin High.
“Sam is still The Man.”
Now, when the Austin Bar recognizes lawyers who exemplify the highest ideals of the profession, the award they receive will carry the name of a lawyer who spent a lifetime demonstrating what those ideals look like in practice.
