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Law360, Houston (May 15, 2020, 2:48 PM EDT ) Susman Godfrey LLP founder Stephen Susman has awoken from a weeklong coma and has been transferred to a Houston rehabilitation hospital to begin recovering from serious head injuries sustained in a bike crash last month, colleagues and relatives said this week.
Susman, 79, has become able to respond to words and speak since his April 22 bicycle crash, relatives said on a social media website journaling his recovery. He has transferred to the TIRR Memorial Hermann rehabilitation hospital to continue his progress, Susman Godfrey managing partner Neal Manne said Friday.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a barrier to relatives and well-wishers who want to physically visit Susman. His wife, children and stepchildren were able to briefly visit him while he was at the hospital but said they will be unable to visit him at TIRR.
Susman Godfrey attorneys have celebrated the news that Susman has entered rehabilitation over remote chats.
"Though our physical offices are closed, in some ways the public health crisis and Steve's accident have brought us even closer together as a firm," Manne said.
Susman started his elite litigation boutique in 1980 after winning a record-shattering, half-billion-dollar antitrust settlement and leaving a small personal injury and maritime law firm. He more recently founded the Civil Jury Project at New York University, which studies the decline of the civil jury trial and holds educational programs and forums for state and federal judges.
Susman has long been an avid bicyclist. Over the past decade, he has participated several times in a two-day, 150-mile charity bike ride between Houston and Austin to fight multiple sclerosis, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process, according to the law firm.
He also led bike rides through Houston that ran dozens of miles, sometimes multiple times a week. He was on one such ride with Susman Godfrey colleagues on April 22 when his front wheel hit a snag in the pavement in Houston's Old Braeswood neighborhood, sending him over the handlebars.
--Editing by Orlando Lorenzo.
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