James Bennett Kinsel

Jim Kinsel serves as a Managing Partner at Protorae Law and Co-Chair of the firm’s litigation teams. He is a trial attorney who focuses on business litigation, business breakups, disputes over ownership of businesses, and unfair business practice claims. Jim co-founded Protorae Law in 2010, and built the firm’s litigation team.

During his career, Jim has prosecuted and defended countless litigation matters. Jim is accustomed to handling bet-the-company disputes. He is also experienced with advocating for and defending against preliminary injunction motions and temporary restraining order motions.

In 2015, he guided Protorae Law’s litigation team in achieving the second highest jury verdict awarded during that year in Virginia. That same year, he successfully defended another client against a $55 million complaint to reduce the plaintiff’s maximum recovery to no more than nominal damages while also launching a defense of a $10 million claim in a third case. The denial of the claimed actual damages of $55 million was named by the Virginia Lawyers Weekly as one of 2015’s most important opinions.

Jim focuses on litigation involving business disputes such as business conspiracy, trade secret misappropriation, breach of fiduciary duty, and other unfair business practices. In addition, he handles contract claims, including disputes involving noncompete agreements, shareholder agreements or LLC operating agreements. Jim also represents minority and majority owners in disputes over whether someone is a business owner and those involving shareholder oppression and minority squeeze-out claims.

Jim has steered many disputes to favorable outcomes for his clients at trial, through pre-trial motions practice, or settlement with or without mediation. Jim’s well-considered litigation strategies help his clients safeguard critical business and individual assets, including trade secrets, client lists, business relationships, and other proprietary information. When representing individual owners, Jim works to protect their ownership interests.

Jim provides his clients with strategic advice early-on to help them determine how best to resolve a dispute. He is often able to negotiate favorable resolutions before litigation costs escalate. If a settlement cannot be reached, his extensive experience handling complex litigation matters within federal and state courts allows him to aggressively advance his clients’ interests at trial.

Electronic discovery is integral to Jim’s case management. He is able to quickly assess the appropriate scope of electronic discovery for each litigation matter, and provide his clients with an up-front evaluation of the cases’ strengths and weaknesses.

After graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1998, Jim clerked for the Honorable Norman K. Moon in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia. He then joined the Jefferson Law Firm, which became the Tysons office of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC. He later became a partner at Williams Mullen before co-founding Protorae Law.