Mikal C. Watts earned his Bachelor of Arts degree with high honors from the University of Texas in 1987. He graduated with honors from the University of Texas School of Law in 1989 at the age of twenty-one, was named to the Order of the Barristers and won the Niemann Cup as the top advocate of the UT School of Law. In 1989-90, Mikal worked as briefing attorney for the Honorable Thomas R. Phillips, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas. In 1990, he became an associate at David L. Perry & Associates and was named a partner in 1991.

On April 1, 1997, Mikal formed his own firm, which focuses on catastrophic personal injury, product liability, mass torts, commercial and business litigation and wrongful death. Mikal has authored and presented over fifty CLE articles around the world. He is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and is an "AV" rated lawyer in Martindale-Hubbell. Mikal is licensed to practice in the state courts of Texas, the United States District Courts for the Southern, Eastern, Western and Northern Districts of Texas, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth and Sixth Circuits and the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the American Bar Association (ABA), the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), the Attorneys Information Exchange Group (AIEG), the Texas Trial Lawyers Association (TTLA), the State Bar of Texas, the College of the State Bar of Texas, the Corpus Christi Bar Association and the Corpus Christi Young Lawyers' Association and is a charter member of the Reynaldo G. Garza American Inn of Court. Mikal has served as a member of the Board of Directors of AIEG, TTLA, Trial Lawyers for Public Justice (TLPJ); as Co-Chair of AIEG's Chrysler Minivan Lift-gate Latch Litigation Subgroup; as Chair of the State Court Liaison Committee of the Ford Explorer/Firestone Tire federal multi-district litigation; and has served on the Statewide Fundraising Committee of TTLA. Mikal was named by Federal Judge Hilda Tagle as lead trial counsel for the consolidated cases arising from the Queen Isabella Causeway barge/bridge collapse disaster. He is a member of the Silica MDL 1553 Plaintiffs' Executive Committee and is the Plaintiffs' Liaison Counsel.

In 2001, Texas Lawyer selected Mikal as the "Impact Player of the Year." In 2002, The National Law Journal named him "one of the best trial lawyers in the country."Texas Monthly named him one of "Texas' Super Lawyers." In 2004, USA Today noted that Mikal "has soared to the top of the highly-competitive personal injury law business" and The Wall Street Journal tabbed him "a rising star of the plaintiff's bar." Mikal obtained the nation's first jury award involving the withdrawn diabetes drug Rezulin (Margie Sanchez, et al. v. Parke-Davis, et al.); the nation's first jury award involving the recalled Sulzer hip implants (Rupp, et al. v. Sulzer Orthopedics, Inc.); and in January 2001, he settled Bailey v. Ford Motor Company and Bridgestone/Firestone on the eve of the first national post-recall trial in the tread separation/vehicle stability cases. Mikal has achieved outstanding verdicts and settlements for his clients.