One day a year ago in southeast Texas, Lori Laird got a text from a friend and fellow lawyer with an unusually urgent request for help: He had clients to offload. And fast.

“Do you know any Houston attorneys looking for a high-profile case with unpopular clients set to go to trial in May?” asked the other lawyer, Ron Rodgers.

Unpopular was an understatement. They were the parents of a teenage gunman who had killed eight students and two teachers at Santa Fe High School in 2018. Now, they were being sued by the victims’ parents and survivors who wanted to hold them accountable for the killings.

Mr. Rodgers had closed his practice, and he needed someone to take the case off his hands. The problem was that other lawyers in town wanted nothing to do with it. “Wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole,” one told him. Could Ms. Laird recommend anyone?

Instead, Ms. Laird, a family law specialist with seven children who liked to fix people’s problems and enjoyed being so busy there was never enough time for it all, volunteered herself.

“I’m in,” she said. “When can I get the documents?”

What she didn’t say — and what she wouldn’t fully know herself until a few weeks later — was just how much she understood and empathized with the parents of the gunman, perhaps more than any other lawyer could.