Ask a young boy what he wants to be when he grows up, and he might say lawyer, fireman, or pilot. James McKoon would have said all three, and thrown in Navy SEAL for good measure. He followed his heart, though, and went with option one. “I’d always wanted to become a lawyer. I’ll never forget my dad taking me to meet one.
I asked him if he liked what he did, and he said he loved it,” McKoon says. McKoon grew up in Columbus, Ga., attended the University of Georgia and the University of Georgia School of Law, and in 1981, came to Chattanooga to work for Stophel, Caldwell & Heggie. From the start, the firm told him he was a born litigator. As someone who’d been involved in sports most of his life, that suited him just fine. “I was drawn to the competition,” he says. Right out of the gate, McKoon began developing a commercial litigation practice. In recent years, he’s also taken on cases involving catastrophic loss. McKoon says the mark of a good litigator is someone who’s able to empathize with his or her client. “You have to advocate for them, and if you can truly empathize with their issues, then you can advocate with truth. The jury picks up on that,” he says. McKoon says a good litigator also avoids wearing masks as part of a courtroom performance.
“An old attorney told me a long time ago to be myself when I’m in front of a judge or jury, because if I tried to be someone else, they’d smell the falsity,” he says. McKoon says good litigators are also service-oriented. “I want to serve my clients and help them when they have a need. To me, being an attorney is not just a job. I build relationships with my clients, and I care about the outcomes of their cases.”
McKoon experienced success early in his career. His first jury trial lasted 10 days, and ended with his client receiving a sizable verdict. McKoon felt good about what he’d accomplished. “That was a piece of commercial litigation over a fire loss. My adversaries were distinguished attorneys in the Bar, which made it rewarding for me,” he says.
At the other end of the more than 30 years McKoon has been practicing law, he’s been pleased with what he’s been able to achieve for his clients who have suffered a catastrophic loss. “We’ve been able to put our clients in a position to recover financially from the injuries they suffered. It’s had a significant impact on their lives,” he says. McKoon strives to make a difference at home and in his community as well. As a father of five and a grandfather of three, he spends a lot of time “chasing children.” While his three children from his first marriage are in their twenties and either on their own or close to it, he and his second wife have two children, including a son who’s an eighth grader at McCallie and a daughter in sixth grade at GPS. In keeping with the way his parents raised him, he spends as much time with them as possible.
“My eighth grader adores hunting. And I have a client who [in October] is going to take us to his place in coastal South Carolina to hunt deer. My son has talked about nothing else for three months,” he says. Civically, McKoon has served as legal counsel for the Jaycees, helped raise money for the YMCA and United Way, and is a member of Civitan. However, his most significant contribution to his community would be the time he’s spent coaching youth sports, including baseball, basketball, football and soccer.
“I’ve been involved in coaching most of my adult life. When my youngest son was in the sixth grade, I was an assistant coach for the McCallie football team. I’ve also coached him in select baseball. When my youngest daughter was at Bright School, I was an assistant coach for her basketball team. When my older children were young, I coached soccer and baseball,” he says. If the team photos that cover the walls of McKoon’s office are an indication of how much time he’s spent coaching, he’s just provided an abbreviated catalog of his coaching activities. But as a former high school athlete, he sees great value in sports.
“My dad was active with me when I was growing up, and that’s how I learned to be a dad. It means a lot to my kids to have me there nurturing and supporting them,” he says.
Currently, McKoon is devoting time to a cause close to his heart: FCA Cheerleading, an organization that endeavors to share the Christian faith with cheerleaders worldwide. McKoon is on the national board and serves as CFO. “The stories you hear are astounding. When you sit down with them in a huddle, you’ll hear about how one girl is being raped by her stepfather, and another one is cutting herself because she can’t deal with the pressure of always being pretty and popular. They need someone to love them. So it’s on my heart to serve God through FCA Cheerleading,” he says.
McKoon has more in common with cheerleaders than a casual acquaintance would realize. Although he’d played football in high school, he was too small to play Division 1 ball in college, so he tried out for the University of Georgia cheerleading squad - and made it.
“I had been an all-star and all-state football player in high school, and I had some Division 2 scholarships, but my heart was set on the University of Georgia,” he says.
Nearly 35 years later, McKoon is still cheering on the Bulldogs. This earns him some ribbing from the Vols fans with whom he works at McKoon, Williams & Haun, the Chestnut Street law firm he founded in 1996. The small, quiet, elegantly furnished general practice is a testament to the passion McKoon feels for his work. Like the man with whom he sat down as a young boy, he loves the practice of law.
“It’s different every day. I’ll come to the office with a general idea about what I’ll be doing, and then I’ll get a phone call, or someone will serve me with papers, and all of a sudden, the game plan has changed. I have to constantly strategize, just like I’m playing a game. I’ll think, ‘I’ve never seen that formation before,’ or, ‘I can’t believe we fumbled the ball.’ I love organizing a team to tackle the challenges we face. “And I like that I’m limited only by my imagination. While the law binds us, football players are bound by the rules of their game, but someone was able to develop the West Coast offense. The practice of law is all about using your imagination.”
It’s also about making the most of the direction and counsel one receives. From his father’s guiding hand, to the attorneys who shared their love of the practice of law with him, he’s where he is today in part because of the time they gave him. But he reserves his deepest gratitude for his wife, Vickie. Without her support, he could not do what he does, he says. “She puts up with the hours. She understands there are times when I have to come in on the weekend to get ready for a deposition, and she knows there are times when I won’t be there for dinner at 6 o’clock because I have to get a brief out.
“It takes a special woman to marry a lawyer. It’s challenging and fun for me to fight and win a case, but during all of those hours of preparation, she’s at home taking care of our kids because I’m not there.”
If McKoon had grown up to fight fires, pilot an airplane, or join an elite fighting force, he likely would have invested just as much of himself in those pursuits as he does the practice of law. But there are those who are grateful he chose the path he did. And that, perhaps, is the greatest measure of a good litigator.