In 2008, a chance meeting between a space-faring mercenary and an alien hunter took place in an Atlanta hotel. This collision of two diverse universes birthed a romance neither foresaw and produced equally unexpected spinoffs.
Neither Jayne Cobb of the starship Serenity nor Gwen Cooper of the Torchwood Institute expected to meet a future spouse as they arrived at Dragon Con that year. Or rather, beneath their sci-fi gets-ups, neither Kellan Potts of Tennessee’s Possum Creek nor Katie Marcinkowski of upstate New York had matrimony on their mind as they participated in the pop culture event, held each Labor Day in The Big Peach.
However, Potts, who dressed as Cobb from the television series “Firefly,” and Marcinkowski, who attended as Cooper, a character from the “Doctor Who” spinoff “Torchwood,” did meet. And after their mutual love of science fiction and horror had brought them to the same space, it steered them onto a path that ultimately led to their decidedly down-to-earth roles as husband and wife, father and mother.
As Potts, 37, recalls the day he met Katie, he’s not dressed in Cobb’s signature orange knit hat (which features a pair of goofy ear flaps), green military jacket and soldier-of-fortune scowl. Instead, he’s sporting a shaved head, a crisp dark blue suit and a welcoming smile. He’s also seated at a conference table at Mincy Law Firm in Chattanooga.
Potts isn’t there for a “Law & Order” cosplay event, though. Rather, he recently joined the family law firm as a domestic litigation attorney.
“(Firm founder) Chrissy Mincy and I knew each other from working opposite sides of divorce cases,” Potts says, suggesting that performing well when facing off against a fellow attorney can be as effective as nailing a job interview when trying to secure a position with a firm.
Potts credits his wife for not only encouraging him to become an attorney but also for doing a lot of heavy lifting at home while he tackled the monolithic task of graduating from law school and passing the bar.
“I didn’t go directly from high school to college,” says Potts, a son of dirt-poor, blue-collar parents. “I worked retail, restaurant and labor jobs until I met my wife, who said, ‘You seem semi-intelligent. You should go to college.’”
Katie had already used her uncanny powers of persuasion to convince Potts to move to New York. She employed these same abilities again after Potts graduated from State University of New York at Binghamton when she suggested he attend law school. As Potts worked his way through the curriculum at Albany Law School of Union University, she cared for their infant son.
Potts, who claims to relish a good debate, says he gravitated to the law naturally, partly because his intellectual sparring partners had always told him he’d be a good attorney. However, he credits Katie, a teacher, with making it possible.
“People from my neck of the woods didn’t go to law school, so I never thought I could, but my wife was very supportive,” Potts recalls. “She said, ‘If you want to go to law school, we can do it.’ It was tough. My son was 6 months old when I started.”
Several years of criminal defense practice followed, with Potts forging a path of zealous representation that stretched from the Bronx all the way north to the Canadian border. Along the way, he was spared few examples of felonious behavior.
Despite his rogues’ gallery of clients, he found gratifying purpose in his work. “People would ask me, ‘How do you do this job when you know they’re guilty?’ I’d say, “They might have made a mistake, but everyone makes mistakes. So, I look at the person, and the person is not the crime; the crime is what it is, and I deal with that.’”
Potts says he knew he could possibly place someone who should be incarcerated back on the streets if he did his job correctly, but his function within the criminal justice system was not to ensure criminals were imprisoned but to “keep the state honest.”
“My job was to protect the constitutional rights of my clients, so I didn’t struggle with what I did because it’s a requirement in our society.”
Although Potts believed in the necessity of his work, he adds one case did knock the proverbial air out of his lungs – a double murder in New York that landed in his lap after new evidence surfaced 30 years after his client was jailed.
As co-chair on the case, Potts had a hand in overturning the man’s conviction. However, the district attorney took the case back to trial and secured a fresh conviction, even though Potts says he mounted a capable defense.
“He was convicted on what I believe was impossible evidence. Everything had gone well for us – every cross-examination and every bit of evidence. It was the kind of case that would convince you there was no way you could lose.”
As Potts was starting the appeal process, his client committed suicide. The tragic turn of events left him crestfallen.
“I wondered, ‘Do I want to continue to practice law?’ But just like a quarterback has to have a short memory when he throws an interception, as long as you know how to do your job, and you know you did it well, then you have to move on. If you let things like that drag you down, then you won’t do this work for long.”
After a sabbatical, Potts continued to practice law but eventually shifted his focus from criminal defense to family matters. After a friend suggested he consider joining Cordell & Cordell in Chattanooga, which was close to his childhood home, Potts and his wife made their way south.
Potts says he welcomed the opportunity to help people without sometimes having to defend bad behavior.
“Don’t get me wrong; that does happen in family law,” Potts corrects himself. “But I fell in love with it. I deal with the most intimate details of my clients’ lives, and I handle things that will affect them for the rest of the lives – their children, their homes, their retirement.
“If I do well and help my clients get through one of the most difficult things they’ll ever experience, then I can go home at the end of the day and be pleased with the work I did.”
Potts says his parents divorced when he was young but never fought. This spared him and his late brother the drama of a traumatic split, which today motivates him to do everything he can to ensure his clients have a relatively positive experience, he adds.
“If people have to separate, then I hope they can work together amicably.”
When Potts is involved in a divorce that’s not friendly – when acrimony, vengeance, or even greed fuel a separation between two people who once vowed to care for each other for the rest of the lives – he reminds himself that there are worse things than the daily annoyances that can crop up when two people combine their lives.
In other words, Potts says representing a client in a tumultuous divorce reminds him to “not sweat the small stuff,” and he returns home to Katie and their two children, who are 5 and 10, and does his part to ensure their union remains strong.
It’s something even a self-regarding mercenary from the planet Sycorax might appreciate.
“Seeing the pitfalls absolutely helps my marriage and how I parent my children. I frequently joke with my wife, ‘Me working this job has made us stronger.’ So, when the little things that can pop up in every relationship surface, I view them through the lens of what I do, and it makes me appreciate what I have.”