Filemon Vela
Of Counsel Attorney – Corpus Christi & South Texas
BIOGRAPHY
Filemon Vela is an accomplished attorney and former member of the United States House of Representatives. Before his election to Congress in 2012, Mr. Vela built a distinguished career as a contingency fee trial lawyer handling complex, high-stakes litigation across multiple states.
After beginning his legal career in 1988 with the San Antonio firm of Southers and Lyons, Mr. Vela represented hundreds of clients in Social Security, workers’ compensation, and personal injury matters.
In 1992, he secured his first multimillion-dollar recovery as lead counsel in a product liability case against General Motors involving a fatal fuel tank explosion. Over the next two decades, he achieved numerous multimillion-dollar settlements throughout Texas, New Mexico, and Alabama in cases involving catastrophic vehicle accidents, severe workplace injuries, and automobile product defects—including extensive litigation against Firestone and Ford arising from tire failures and rollover crashes.
Mr. Vela also developed a significant construction defect practice, securing multiple eight-figure recoveries for public entities, including school districts and municipalities, in claims involving the defective design and construction of public buildings. His clients included the Pharr–San Juan–Alamo, La Joya, Edinburg, Mercedes, and San Benito Independent School Districts, as well as the City of Pharr and Hidalgo County.
Elected in 2012 to represent Texas’s 34th Congressional District—spanning South Texas from Brownsville to Gonzales County—Mr. Vela served ten years in the U.S. House of Representatives. During his tenure, he and his staff assisted thousands of constituents with matters involving federal agencies, including veterans’ benefits, Social Security, and immigration.
Mr. Vela earned his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University in 1985 and his Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law in 1987.
