Chris Ameel obtained his bachelor’s degree from Texas Tech University in 1982 and his law degree from South Texas College of Law (Houston) in 1989. He has practiced exclusively in the workers’ compensation field during a 30 plus year legal career. He started his legal career at the Texas Attorney General’s Office as an Assistant Attorney General in the Workers’ Compensation Section of the Tort Litigation Division in February 1990.
During his career, Chris has represented insurance carriers, political subdivisions, self-insured employers, and third-party administrators in all facets of workers’ compensation litigation. While Chris is primarily involved in representation of his clients at the DWC field offices and in trial court actions seeking judicial review of final DWC decisions, he has also been involved in a variety of related adversarial matters. This has included defending clients in claims of defamation, wrongful discrimination, insurance bad faith, medical provider billing fraud, medical billing disputes through the DWC’s Medical Fee Dispute Resolution process, non-subscriber negligence, and Texas Labor Code compliance issues at the DWC. He also represents his clients in matters before the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH). Another part of his practice involves the prosecution and intervention in 3rd party actions and suits in the name of Claimants against negligent parties in order to obtain subrogation recovery.
Over the course of his career, Chris has served as lead counsel in 60 trials in Texas District Court and County Courts at Law resulting in favorable jury verdicts and judgments in over 70% of the cases tried. These trials have been conducted all over Texas, as far west as El Paso, east to Longview, south to Corpus Christi, and north to Amarillo. Chris has appellate experience and has involved in 10 appeals filed in state appellate courts, including to the Texas Supreme Court.
Chris was a speaker at his previous firm’s annual client seminars between 1991 and 2008. He has also written for several publications in the area of workers’ compensation law including the Texas bar Journal.