Garrett Oates is glad to be back home in West Texas, working at McCleskey Law Firm where he’ll add an experienced litigator and areas of practice to the almost 100-year-old firm.
Oates joined the firm in September, bringing legal experience across a wide range of areas of law — family law, criminal law, general civil litigation, contract disputes, probate, wrongful death and more.
Oates was a partner at Stake & Oates P.C, in Woodward, Oklahoma, before deciding to return to Lubbock, where he graduated from Texas Tech School of Law in 2018.
He credits his former partner, Michael Stake, for his broad education and experience after law school. “He taught me how to do everything by letting me do everything.”
With his experience in family law, Oates brings the following areas of practice to McCleskey:
- Annulments
- Child Support
- CPS Cases
- Custody
- Divorce
- Grandparent & Third-Party Rights
- Guardianships
- Juvenile Law
- Name Changes
- Paternity Cases
- Post-Decree Notifications
- Pre- & Post-Nuptial Agreements
- Protective Orders
“We’re thrilled to have Garrett join our firm. Besides his experience in existing areas of practice we offer, he’s expanding our offerings in family law,” said Jerry Kolander, McCleskey’s Managing Partner.
The litigator got to practice in different settings in Woodward, just east of the Oklahoma Panhandle.
“There were times I would be in five different county courthouses in one day.”
Court could mean cases in any area — family law, a civil suit and juvenile law. An ordinary day could include going three hours away to Cimarron County, on the western edge of Oklahoma’s panhandle and 96 miles south of Woodward to Beckham County, east of Amarillo.
“There are no attorneys out there. I was in my car all the time. It was nothing to put 30,000 to 35,000 miles (a year) on my car just for work,” Oates said.
At the small firm, he also had to institute office management software, create a website and learn how to process credit cards and conduct bill collection.
“I’m looking forward to being a lawyer first,” he said. He’s grateful to be part of a larger legal firm with support staff so he can focus on practicing law.
Oates is happy he found McCleskey. When he interviewed, he felt the partners were warm and cared about each other, but he also knew that first appearances don’t always pan out.
“I didn’t know what to expect. But they are who they are. They are who they represent themselves to be. That’s really what I’m looking forward to. You can approach them, even ask them a dumb question, you know,” he said.
Oates – along with Jimmy Dean, the late singer and sausage maker – was born in Plainview. But he has no memory of living there. Soon his father, who worked for a fertilizer manufacturer, moved their family to Memphis, Tenn. Then to the company’s corporate headquarters in Sioux City, Iowa, where the family lived in a nearby town of about 1,200 people, Lawton, Iowa.
Oates went through school there. “It didn’t feel that small because it was seven miles to Sioux City.”
His mother was a schoolteacher and she brought Oates and his brother, back to Texas most every summer to visit family in Lamesa and San Angelo.
“We went to Texas for vacation. It was always glorified, glamorized. Like one day we’ll get back to Texas. That’s always been the goal for my parents. It’s been instilled in us since we were kids,” he said.
Oates remembers people calling their answering machine in Iowa, just to hear his mother’s Texas twangy drawl.
Oates’ move to Lubbock will be followed next year by his parents. His brother still dreams of moving to the South Plains after his children are grown.
The family are Dallas Cowboy fans. But the family divided their loyalties in college ball. His dad was a diehard Texas A&M fan, while his brother rooted for Tech. Growing up, Oates favored the Longhorns, because a favorite cousin went to college in Austin.
But Oates admits he’s looking forward to cheering for Tech again this year.
“I came to the law school and I enjoyed every second of it. I went to games. This year, I’m pretty certain they’re going to be better than Texas.”
After Iowa, Oates went to Minnesota State Moorhead where he studied criminal law and political science for his bachelor’s degree. One of his respected professors and advisers encouraged Oates to attend law school.
While Oates was away at college, his father’s company changed hands and his parents moved first to Illinois and then to Woodward, where the company had a plant and his parents could be close to Oates’ aging grandparents in Texas. It was a natural transition for Oates to practice law after graduating from Tech in Woodward.
But the small-town life had challenges when his son Knox was born. He and his wife Kaylee had gone to the hospital in Enid, about 90 miles away, to deliver Knox.
But the little guy had respiratory problems and needed a hospital with a ventilator, which was in Oklahoma City, another two hours away.
“We were three hours away from the Oklahoma Children’s Hospital. We didn’t know then to ask (the Enid hospital) what level of neonatal intensive care they had. You know the old adage, when you have a child, your whole world changes. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We can’t be three hours away from a doctor if anything were to happen,” said Oates of another attraction to Lubbock.
The couple is expecting a baby girl in January.
Along with joining a well-respected firm like McCleskey, there are all the big city delights Lubbock offers too.
“Like going to Target or out to eat at a nice restaurant. Any kind of entertainment, a concert. We aren’t two-and-a half hours or more away from anything like that,” he said.
