Marquis Who's Who Honors Howard L. Nations for Fighting for Justice for Veterans

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UNIONDALE, NY / / June 9, 2025 / Attorney Howard L. Nations has been selected for inclusion in the Marquis Who's Who (MWW) for his dedication to representing veterans in various high-profile cases.
About Howard L. Nations
Mr. Nations built a national trial practice by prosecuting mass tort cases focused on personal injury and wrongful death caused by carcinogenic toxins, dangerous pharmaceuticals, and defective medical devices. The Nations Law Firm currently represents several thousand veterans, wounded warriors, and Gold Star Families.
As a leader in the legal profession, Mr. Nations served as president of six law organizations including The National Trial Lawyers Association, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and the Southern Trial Lawyers Association. As an educator, he lectured on trial advocacy in all 50 states, six Canadian provinces and 12 foreign countries. He is an inductee into the Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame and the recipient of the highest award granted by the American Association for Justice, the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Mr. Nations was born into a family with a long military pedigree dating back to the American Revolution. As a child, he was surrounded by military family members and friends returning from World War II. The substantial influence of veterans in his early life inspired his youthful goal to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point.
However, as a nine-year-old child, he became involved in his first trial as a plaintiff. He testified on his own behalf, was cross-examined and emerged victorious with his first courtroom victory. This event changed his life as he was impressed by the dignified aura of the courtroom, the power of the Court, and the ability of his lawyer to achieve justice for him, an underdog child in an adult court. From that victory, his life goal became law school and a career as a Plaintiff's lawyer.
In addition to his law goal, his love of the military continued and at underage 16, he joined the Florida National Guard. After high school, he volunteered for the U.S. Army where, in one of the most influential events of his life, Mr. Nations was assigned to the Army Language School to receive training as a Russian linguist. In addition to learning Russian, the school taught him discipline, attention to detail, study methods, study habits and how to fiercely compete to excel in academia. Continuing these strictly enforced military disciplines and methodologies carried him through seven years of college and law school on academic scholarships.
As a Russian linguist, Mr. Nations was assigned to the Army Security Agency in South Korea, from which he coordinated with military intelligence throughout Asia. Upon his return to the United States, he completed his active military duty in the United States Army Military Intelligence. He then served two years in the Army Reserve, completing his eight years of military service with an Honorable Discharge.
After completing military service, Mr. Nations graduated from Florida State University, acquired his law degree from Vanderbilt University, and was sworn in as a member of the State Bar of Texas on September 15, 1966. He initially worked for five years with a large Houston firm. During this time, he began teaching civil trial courses as an adjunct professor of law at South Texas College of Law, where he taught for 25 years.
When Mr. Nations formed The Nations Law firm in Houston on May 1, 1971, he pledged to render legal services for veterans as part of his firm's mission statement. During the past 54 years of practice, The Nations Law firm has been loyal to that pledge. The firm represents thousands of veterans in Camp Lejeune cases and the FSIA Antiterrorism wounded warrior litigation.
In his early years of practice, Mr. Nations gave free representation to numerous veterans accused of crimes. His experiences in Korea, combined with his pro bono work with veterans accused of crimes, gave him an early understanding of the huge problem of posttraumatic stress disorder among veterans. He coordinated for years with a prominent Houston neuropsychologist to prove posttraumatic stress disorder as a defense to criminal conduct before the diagnosis was acknowledged by the United States government or the Veterans Administration.
As numerous veterans returned from Vietnam, suffering from PTSD, Mr. Nations represented them in the continuing effort to prove that PTSD existed and should be acknowledged as a diagnosis for both medical compensation and criminal defense. Through the efforts of many medical, psychological, and legal experts, the horrors of PTSD were finally acknowledged and treatment approved.
In 2016, Congress passed the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act creating the right and cause of action for wounded warriors and other victims of terrorism to sue terrorist organizations and their sponsors for damages for personal injury and wrongful death.
The Nations Law Firm immediately joined five other prominent mass tort firms to form a consortium to represent wounded warriors who were killed or injured by nine terrorist organizations funded by Iran. The consortium represents 2,554 veterans, their families, and Gold Star families. After seven years of proving 108 bellwether cases in Court, the Plaintiffs received their first Final Judgment in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia in the amount of $960 million against Iran. Cases on behalf of the remaining 2,446 wounded warriors and their Gold Star families are still being prosecuted by the consortium.
Throughout his career, Mr. Nations has been an active lobbyist, both in Congress and state legislatures, on behalf of personal injury and wrongful death victims. He lobbies against product liability bills that grant immunity to manufacturers of defective products, and tort reform designed to reduce or eliminate damage recoveries by victims of negligent or egregious conduct of others. His primary focus currently is the passage of Congressional legislation that aids veterans in their pursuit of justice.
For a 34-year period from 1954 through 1987, carcinogenic toxins were dumped into the drinking water at Marine Base Camp Lejeune, thus exposing more than a million people to cancers and at least 10 deadly diseases. The party responsible for this egregious conduct was the United States government. The law provided no remedy to the hundreds of thousands of victims since the government was, by statute, immune from liability.
For more than a decade, Ed Bell, an outstanding trial lawyer from South Carolina, tried to pass federal legislation that would provide a remedy for those Marines, veterans, and civilians who had contracted deadly diseases from exposure to the toxic water at Camp Lejeune. In 2021, Ed Bell engaged Mr. Nations and Jim Onder, an outstanding mass tort lawyer, to assist in passing this remedial legislation. On August 10, 2022, President Biden signed the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022 into law, thus creating a cause of action for plaintiffs who can prove that their disease was as likely as not caused by exposure to either of the four carcinogens that the federal government knowingly dumped into the water at Camp Lejeune.
Within the two-year period allowed for filing claims against the government under this statute, 554,000 claims were filed. The Nations Law Firm represents thousands of veterans, suing the United States government under the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022.
The Nations Law Firm, through the Wounded Warriors Consortium, is also suing 21 foreign banks in New York under the Anti-Terrorism Act and JASTA for laundering Iranian currency into dollars to buy weapons of war for their nine acolyte terrorist organizations to use against American military forces. The FSIA wounded warriors are also plaintiffs in this litigation.
Mr. Nations continues to lobby the United States Congress on three more bills that will increase the likelihood of recoveries for veterans and their families. For these reasons, Marquis Who's Who has chosen to honor Mr. Nations for his continuing fight for justice for veterans.
About Marquis Who's Who®:
Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America®, Marquis Who's Who® has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who's Who in America® remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis® publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who's Who® website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.
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SOURCE: Marquis Who's Who
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