OFF THE RECORD

Lindsay Lambert:
Firefighter, Scout Leader, Lawyer

By Ann D. Zeigler

Lindsay Lambert doesn’t think of it as volunteering. He thinks of it as just being a good member of the Bellaire community: volunteer member of the Bellaire Fire Department, plus adult leader of a Troop of 70-plus Boy Scouts, plus adult leader and treasurer of a Pack of 80-plus Cub Scouts. That’s on top of his day job as a partner in HughesWattersAskanase’s litigation section and one of the firm’s two managing partners. Does he meet himself coming and going? Regularly. Would he give up any part of it? Never.
Bellaire Cub Scout Pack 130 has several trained adult leaders, in addition to Cub Master David Barnes, supervising activities for 80 boys between 6 and 11 years old. Lambert, as Pack treasurer, is the supervisor for the Pack’s two fund-raising events this year—sales of Scout Fair tickets this spring, and popcorn sales last fall, in which the Pack sold more than $8,500 worth of popcorn. Lambert notes that he did not allow his Cub Scout son to “drop off” a sales flyer at the firm, instead requiring him to do individual in-person sales and deliveries.
For the past five years, Lambert’s major activity with Pack members has been the Pine Wood Derby. This involves individual Cubs designing, building and racing wooden cars made from blocks of pine. Lambert and other adult volunteers cut out each individual Cub’s design block with a bandsaw, and the Cub (to the extent he is able) sands, assembles wheels and axles, adds weight, paints, and gravity-races his own Derby car. In 2005, Lambert estimates the adults cut 40 cars. In prior years they have cut as many as 75 different cars from the Cubs’ designs. His work on the Pine Wood Derby is in addition to the Pack’s two annual camp-out weekends and 10 Pack meetings.
Lambert is one of several adult leaders assisting Scoutmaster Jamie Jameson in supervising Bellaire Boy Scout Troop 222’s 70 Scouts, divided into Patrols of five to six boys each. The Troop has chosen a Scout-led structure, so the adults do not lead many activities. Instead, they give training in various Scout skills and point out any health or safety issues as the Scouts take charge of their own projects. The activities include 10 camp-out weekends per year, one full-week summer tent-camping trip and Troop meetings every Tuesday evening. Lambert has committed to seeing his older son through to his Eagle Scout Board of Review, with the non-negotiable agreement that his son cannot get his driver’s license until that day arrives. Lambert is preparing a presentation to the Troop on the Constitution, and hopes to ask one of the judges who has been active in scouting to speak to the Troop as well.
Scheduling that presentation has an “iffy” side to it, however. For the past year, Lambert has been one of 18 trained volunteer men and women who are part of the Bellaire Fire Department. The volunteers assist Bellaire’s full-time professional firefighters, who are also either paramedics or Emergency Medical Technicians. At any given time there are six full-time firefighters on duty to operate one of the two pumper trucks (volunteers staff the other), the ambulance, and the command vehicle. The station also has a Cascade truck, which refills fire fighters’ air tanks, and Lambert is one of the people trained to operate it. Volunteers must be available to cover calls while the full-time firefighters are out, as well as when a major emergency requires extra trained personnel.
This is an absolute commitment to be available 24-7-365, to drop everything and go immediately to the Bellaire Fire Station (or wherever they are dispatched) and be prepared to do whatever they are directed to do. Lambert estimates that he makes that drive two-10 times each week. He carries his “bunker gear” in his truck, including helmet, boots, pants, coat, gloves and hood. A firefighter’s gear weighs more than 40 pounds, and with the air tank backpack, the firefighter (male or female) walks into a burning building loaded with personal gear weighing about 75 pounds.
Lambert and Bellaire’s other firefighters attend mandatory training for three hours on the first and third Mondays of every month. He has taken some of the firefighter training courses at Texas A&M University, and depending on the Department’s staffing needs, he may take additional fire training or EMT training at A&M this year. Bellaire also occasionally offers additional training “on-site” for its firefighters, when a house that is going to be demolished is donated to the City. The firefighters train in such techniques as navigating in extremely smoky situations, searching for adults or children who may be inside a burning structure, determining which direction to follow the fire hose to go out the front door and which direction leads to the heart of the fire, and how to minimize risk in cutting a vent hole in the roof to let heat and smoke out. Lambert says a bad fire can generate heat of up to 1,100 degrees.
The volunteers cover calls to the Department when the full-time fire-fighters are called out, as well as providing additional personnel at large fires or other fire-related events, such as fuel spills or fire-related accidents on the West Loop and Bellaire city streets. Bellaire’s full-time firefighters also provide back-up to the fire departments of West University Place and Southside Place, so the volunteers must be ready to cover all Bellaire emergencies during those events.
When the chips are really down for the entire community, as in Hurricane Rita, the Bellaire volunteers do what it takes. Lambert boarded up his house, sent his family out of town, and went to live at the station to answer emergency calls until given the all-clear to go back home.
Why would a busy litigator with major commitments to a busy family do this? Lambert says the answer is not hard. “When the call comes in, I know this is the worst day of someone’s life. We can’t make it better, but we can try to see that it doesn’t get worse.”

Ann Zeigler practices in the bankruptcy section of HughesWattersAskanase in Houston, and is a member of the editorial board of The Houston Lawyer.

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