My First Blog Post
I sit here at my desk wondering what to blog about in my initial post. My law partner, Michael Cory, has issued stern instructions that I need to blog and I absolutely agree with him, but the question remains what should I blog about? Writer’s block is no fun! So, should I share with you my thoughts on tort reform, jury caps, tort claims suits, venue, or other important albeit technical legal issues…. Maybe in the future, but I will not blog about such things today. Instead I will talk about myself and who I am and in the coming weeks will move on to more “legal” topics.
I am a trial lawyer in Mississippi. I was born and raised in Arizona, went to college in Ohio, cleaned pools in Florida, and attended law school in Mississippi. I was raised in the West, and grew up riding horses and playing baseball on hard dry dirt fields. I moved to the Midwest for college, where I majored in history and was able to play baseball on beautiful green grassy fields. I then moved to Florida, where I cleaned pools and soaked up the sun on beautiful beaches. At that point I still was not sure what I wanted to do so like 2 of my siblings I decided to go to law school. I applied to different schools and decided on the University of Mississippi after attending a football game and after being romanced by the grandeur of the Grove. In law school I learned a lot about the legal system that provided me with a solid foundation for practicing law. But in Oxford I learned a lot more especially about the South including fried catfish, crawfish, SEC football, SEC baseball, hotty toddy, y’all, James Meredith, racial riots, and of course the egg bowl. It was new culture, a different culture and one that I fell in love with. At the same time, I also fell in love with my wife, Caroline, whom I married upon graduation from law school and who gave us two fantastic boys.
I was a solid law school student and during the summers I had worked for the Mississippi Attorney General. When I graduated, I wanted to work in the private sector so I took a job at a small firm in the Delta. It was at this firm that my passion as a trial lawyer was kindled. The firm did a little of everything and from day one I was put to work: arguing in front of judges, preparing trial briefs, picking juries, interviewing witnesses and studying documents became my routine. After a few years, I was hired by a large firm in Jackson, where I continued to develop as a trial lawyer. Under great tutelage, I became more comfortable inside the courtroom. Like many big firms, this one began to unravel and I decided to leave the firm with a few partners and some other associates. In the new firm, I had a lot more responsibility and actively built a litigation practice. It was here that I first realized that the best possible litigator was one who both prosecuted and defended cases. Too often you find lawyers zealously proclaiming that they are only Plaintiff or Defense counsel. That is a short sighted approach that I find often leads to bad decision making. After a few years, I decided it was time for me to open up my own practice and with another lawyer we went out on our own. Again we were fortunate to be able to both defend and prosecute good cases: cases that we were proud to work on and cases that made a difference in peoples’ lives.
That practice grew and after a few years we merged with some lawyers to form what eventually became Danks Miller & Cory. It is a firm that I am very proud of not only for the work that we do but also for the people that I work with every day. In our practice, we continue to both prosecute and defend cases. We represent some large businesses and we represent some individual plaintiffs. We work all over the State of Mississippi in various forums seeking various relief including commercial, administrative, zoning, family, malpractice and criminal cases.
Thank you for reading my first blog and please feel free to call at 601-957-3101 if you have any questions.
Ken Miller