Attorney Spotlight: Shawn Mechler’s Path from Ophthalmology to Personal Injury

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From Ophthalmology to Personal Injury

Our newest team member Shawn Mechler was almost never an attorney. A biology major from The University of Texas at Austin (UT), Shawn was sure for the first part of his life that he was going to be a neurosurgeon.

Optical Solution

Since his freshman year of high school, Shawn remembers being captivated by neurology. While many young adults enter college undeclared, Shawn went into UT knowing what his passion was; neurology. HisĀ interest in the brain, the intricacies of its structure and functions, led him to a deeper fascination with ocular mechanics and medicine. So, towards the end of his college tenure Shawn shifted his career focus towards Ophthalmology, and with a new family to support, Shawn decided to immediately go to work as a surgical technician upon graduation. For the better part of the next decade, Shawn would assist in the treatment of Ā vitreo-retinal pathology.

Shawn remembers fondly working under the highly-esteemed, late Ophthalmologist Dr. Sheldon ā€œShellyā€ Braverman, the first retinal surgeon in South Texas.Ā  But after eight years as a surgical technician and with a third baby on the way, Shawn felt he was reaching a professional impasse. Thatā€™s when a family member, who was also an attorney, suggested he apply to law school. Initially Shawn brushed off the advice,Ā but started to realize his current career could only carry him so far professionally, and started to give the idea more thought.

Vision Works

In the fall of 2008, with a newborn and two young children to support, Shawn made the decision to pursue a law degree at St. Maryā€™s University School of Law. From day one of his acceptance, he worked indefatigably. In fact, where Shawn would have previously dropped a class due to a public speaking assignment, he now yearned to be called on during his first year classes. It was in the course of moot court his second semester that Shawn truly embraced and honed his natural talent for relaying arguments with charisma, empathy, and poignancy; all elements of a great trial lawyer and what would lead him to become a personal injury attorney.

While at St. Maryā€™s, Shawn served as the executive editor of the St. Maryā€™s Law Journal and went on to graduate magna cum laude. His passion was now his three young children and giving a voice to those who needed one. After a clerkship with the Fourth Court of Appeals, Shawn began his highly successful career as a personal injury attorney and joined Crosley Law Firm, P.C. in 2018.

Shawn was raised in Castroville, Texas, a small town of only about 2,800 residents, but he considers himself a native San Antonian. He moved early in life with his family to the Northwest side, where he spent his formative years and eventually graduated from John Marshall High School. He is a father to three beautiful children and is an avid Longhorn football fan ā€“ hookā€™em!