On the Stand With Kevin Meek

Why did you become a trial lawyer?

I didn’t start out as a trial lawyer, and I didn’t even start my professional career intending to be a lawyer.

I went to Texas A&M University for electrical engineering and planned to get my PhD, be a professor, and do advanced research on semiconductors. I worked in a lab with a very high-powered laser, which was the primary focus of my research. But then the company that owned the laser wanted it back, and there went my career plan. With my scientific background, it made sense to be a patent lawyer.

Scientific fluency is the defining characteristic of a patent practice. Patent lawyers are technology teachers with law degrees. As I got more experienced, I started working on more trials through my litigation docket. My job is to take something that’s on the cutting edge of technology (computers, cell phones, airplanes, etc.) and distill it in a way that the jury can understand and use to draw the right conclusion. To present highly technical subject matter to that audience, I must understand it to begin with. My technology subject matter knowledge is largely what defines my value as a lawyer.

How do you prepare for each day when you’re at trial?

Everyone on the team has the same job, which is to focus on their assigned role. I’m the old guy on the trial, so I’m going to open, close, take the corporate witness, and cross the opposing side’s corporate witness. That’s my role, and I put all my focus on that.

When I’m preparing for an opening, I grab a few people, and I run my opening argument over and over again in front of them. And they critique it so that it gets better and better. When I stand up in front of the jury on that first day of trial, it’s my 20th time giving the oral argument.

What is the proudest moment of your career to date?

My team won a $278 million jury verdict on behalf of Bell Helicopter in a trial against a Chinese drone manufacturer. I’ve been in trials where we win and I’m sitting there thinking, “How did we win?” But in this trial, we were so far ahead from the beginning and ready for every single thing that happened. The team was ready to go.

That’s the most fun – when you know there isn’t a better team on the planet that could have handled it better. We got the best people to do the best job. If we had lost, I wouldn’t have been happy about it, but I would have also known that nobody could have won it.

What advice do you have for junior lawyers who are thinking about going into trial law or are about to go into their first trial?

If you’re thinking about going into trial law, you need to seek out public speaking opportunities. You can do this through community organizations, internal practice group meetings, continuing legal education (CLE) courses – anything that puts you in front of an audience.

And you need to have someone watching you and telling you how you screwed up. You need to acknowledge that you’re not going to be very good at it right away. If you do think you are going to be good at it right away, you’re not going to be a very good lawyer. You can be confident, but don’t be cocky.

If you’re going into your first trial, organization and preparation are key. Know your role on the team, know where your documents are, know who the witnesses are. When you’re arguing a motion, you should know the question the judge is going to ask before he or she asks it.

You need to understand that “I don’t know,” isn’t acceptable to say during a trial. Know your role and know your stuff.

If you could try any case, what would it be?

The Scopes Monkey Trial. And I’d be on the side of the monkey (evolution). That would have been fun.