Chris King has been handling high-stakes, complex litigation for decades.

When leading companies are facing bet-the-company litigation, they turn to Chris and his extensive litigation experience to get them through it. One of the firm’s founding partners, Chris is passionate about solving his clients’ problems, whether through prelitigation advice, negotiation or trial.

Chris focuses on high-stakes cases, particularly those involving derivative or class action claims, which frequently carry the risk of significant damages. Much of his practice is devoted to representing Fortune 100 companies, including those in the financial services, manufacturing and energy sectors. Chris often works hand-in-hand with counsel throughout the United States to address serial claims against his clients. He has handled high-exposure cases throughout the Southeast, and has tried many of them to verdict for both plaintiffs and defendants. As a result of his trial resume, Chris has been a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers since 2004.

In addition to his trial work, Chris also has an active appellate practice. In particular, he has extensive experience with the post-trial and appellate review of punitive damages awards and the limits imposed on them by the U.S. Constitution. Chris has argued these issues in the Alabama Supreme Court in numerous cases, including a number of precedent-setting consumer fraud lawsuits and the successful appeal of the largest judgment in Alabama history. He has also argued in several federal appellate courts. Chris has such a significant reputation in this area that he is frequently retained by clients and trial counsel in matters other firms have handled. In these cases, he acts as appellate counsel to protect the record leading up to and during trial, and handles any resulting appeal.

Chris is a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Alabama School of Law, where he teaches a course on appellate advocacy each fall semester. He also lectures frequently at CLE events on class actions, punitive damages, appellate issues and ethics. Chris is the chair of the firm's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee and serves as the firm’s General Counsel. The son of an outstanding Mississippi trial lawyer, Chris is married to the daughter of an outstanding Alabama trial lawyer. He is the proud father of four sons and three accomplished daughters-in-law.

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Top 10 Q&A for Product Liability Class Actions

On Being Bullied

It was a bad case in a bad place, and the judge was a bully. He made us make our Batson challenge in the jury’s presence; he was overly solicitous of our opponent and his counsel. He told me to “hurry along” 15 minutes into my opening statement. And he made us pay dearly for every objection by deriding both my client’s position and me. 

Jurors rolled their eyes at us as the judge continued to bear down. At the end of every trial day, the judge urged us to settle. Each morning we returned without having done so, he grew even more combative. After two weeks that felt like two months, we lost...big. Given our venue, our strategy had been to protect the appellate record at all costs. And I would have sworn we did so. But as I read the transcript I realized that as the trial had worn on, I had let the pain of being dressed down by the judge influence our mission to protect our client’s appellate rights. And that, along with trying to force an unreasonable settlement, was precisely what the judge had intended by his tactics.

Schoolyard lesson recalled. The misery of being bullied is temporary. The result of succumbing to the bully can be permanent.