"Dog bites man" is not a news story, the axiom goes. But when a pit bull took off part of Lonnie Burts’ finger, the injured man hired Mark Anderson and Robert Kisselburgh of The Anderson Law Firm in Fort Worth. The two lawyers helped him win a May 7 final judgment against the dog’s owners, who are his neighbors, for $147,000.

Anderson and Kisselburgh had doubts at the outset about their client’s odds.