Lawless is credited with helping to establish the policyholder insurance bar in Texas at a time when insurance cost recovery work was routinely sent to lawyers in New York and other large northern cities.

For Lawless, it all started with an insurance case that arose from one of his then-firm’s environmental clients. After the client was ordered to clean up a contaminated site, Lawless was hired to hold the company’s insurance company liable for damages to pay for the cleanup. He was successful and word-of-mouth spread quickly, resulting in more of that work being referred to him until he was able to start a solo practice in Austin. He soon emerged as thought leader on policyholder law in Texas and eventually, in 1999, Lawless and and a handful of other lawyers founded the Insurance Law Section of the State Bar of Texas, which grew from 200 members to become one of the largest in Texas, now with about 2,100 members representing policyholders and insurers.