Kevin W. Mottley

Kevin began his legal career as a defense lawyer at a large corporate law firm in downtown Richmond. He represented large corporations in personal injury cases and business disputes. This experience was valuable for several reasons.

First, the partners liked Kevin’s work. As a result, they gave him a large amount of freedom to handle cases for their corporate clients. This got Kevin in the courtroom very early in his career, where he handled cases against some of the best plaintiff’s trial lawyers in Virginia.

Second, the demands of the cases forced Kevin to develop a hyper organized, analytical, and business-like approach to litigation. He began to see the value of methodically building his cases, brick-by-brick, into winners. He learned how, in litigation, mastering the intricate details of a case leads to success.

Third, Kevin saw the courtroom from the defendant’s perspective. Because he represented corporate defendants, he developed an understanding of how large corporations, insurance companies, and in-house counsel evaluate and defend lawsuits, and he learned how they think about risk.

A Passion for Representing Traumatic Brain Injury Survivors

It was while defending one of these lawsuits that Kevin first learned about traumatic brain injury (“TBI”) and the devastating, hidden grip it can have on its victims. Representing traumatic brain injury survivors has since become Kevin’s passion. Kevin wrote the book, Brain Case: The Big 5 Questions to Answer Before Filing Your Brain Injury Case, to help people understand how lawyers look at TBI cases. His focus on representing TBI victims has, thus far, resulted in over $12 million in verdicts and settlements for his clients in mild TBI cases.

TBI cases, particularly those involving the so-called “mild” traumatic brain injuries, are distinct from other kinds of personal injury cases. A mild TBI is a “hidden” or “silent” injury. Objective proof of the injury seldom exists, as the injury typically does not show up on an MRI or a CT scan of the brain. A person suffering from one of these injuries may look normal to the casual observer. But the victim’s family, close friends, doctors, and therapists know something is wrong.

For the trial lawyer, proving the injury requires a high degree of familiarity with the most current medicine surrounding Traumatic Brain Injury. It requires relationships with the best brain injury experts in the country. And it requires an approach to litigation that is disciplined and granular, meaning that the trial lawyer must immerse themselves in the most minute details about the client’s life and relationships, both before and after the trauma, to understand the case. That is what energizes Kevin when representing TBI survivors. He loves learning his client’s life story and then telling it to a jury.

Honors & Awards

Super Lawyers

Virginia Business Legal Elite

Other Professional Notes

Former Editor, the Virginia State Bar Litigation Section's publication, Litigation News

Former Member, Board of Governors of the Virginia State Bar's Litigation Section