Jay Henderson was born and raised in the East Texas town of Palestine. Jay graduated from Palestine High School in 1976 with no special accolades except a diploma. He was a first-generation college graduate and worked his way through Texas A&M pumping gas and later serving as a driver for the school’s board of regents. He was fortunate to receive a scholarship to attend Baylor University School of Law, from which he graduated in 1983. While at Baylor Jay served as Editor in Chief of the Baylor Law Review.
Following law school, Jay was honored to have served as a briefing attorney for Justice Charles W. Barrow of the Texas Supreme Court. Judge Barrow was a positive influence in his career, particularly in his demand for hard work, scrupulous professionalism, and unerring integrity. Jay worked at Andrews & Kurth after his judicial clerkship. While at A&K he learned how to try lawsuits under the tutelage of Sam Cruse and others in the medical malpractice section of the firm. The tort litigation group left A&K in 1992 to form Cruse, Scott, Henderson & Allen. That same year Jay and his wife Ria had their first daughter, Hayen, currently a PhD graduate student in psychology at the University of Cambridge. A second daughter, Clarke, was born in 1994 and a son Lucas in 1995, both of whom attend the University of Texas at Austin.
Cruse Scott was a leading trial firm focusing on personal injury and malpractice defense and commercial litigation. Jay and his former partner Scott Allen established one of the premier practices in the nation focused on defending physicians in pharmaceutical and medical devices lawsuits. Starting in 1992 and most of the next 20 years, the firm handled thousands of lawsuits and claims against physicians, mostly with great success. It was during this time period that Jay became acquainted with Tommy Fibich and many other leading plaintiffs lawyers in Texas and around the country.
Beginning in 2010, Jay worked with the Fibich firm on various projects. Jay now has a strong relationship with the Fibich firm and is involved in numerous mass tort, commercial, and general personal injury matters. The most important aspect of the firm’s practice is to remain faithful to the lessons learned from Judge Barrow – adherence to the highest ethical principles for the benefit of clients and the profession.
