Profile: Kevin Morrison
July 2017 | Plaintiff MagazineThere’s probably nowhere Kevin Morrison would rather be than on his bike, traipsing the Italian Alps. Except maybe in the courtroom, taking down unscrupulous companies and their insurers.
In a little more than two decades practicing law, Morrison quickly developed a reputation for being a thorough and resilient trial attorney in the plaintiffs’ personal-injury arena. He was elected to the exclusive American Board of Trial Advocates about three years ago, becoming one of the organization’s youngest members, and while he’s humble about his success, there’s no mistaking his passion for the work.
“I just absolutely loved plaintiffs’ work from the first day I did it,” said Morrison, a partner with Jones Clifford in San Francisco. “Trying to produce a case is very challenging, intellectually fascinating and ultimately rewarding because you’re benefiting someone who’s in desperate need of help.”
The intellectual challenge is what drew Morrison to the law profession at the very beginning. As a youth, he would watch law-related TV shows, enraptured by the courtroom processes, and that fascination steered him toward law school, he said.
“The intellectual rigors of going to court had a strong attraction for me from a very early age,” Morrison recalled. “So I went to college knowing I would probably go to law school and become an attorney. After a brief career in insurance sales after college, which was incredibly depressing, I went to law school and got into litigation.”
Morrison’s diligent preparation and courtroom savvy made him a natural in the trial setting, and he quickly developed a reputation as one of the most formidable plaintiffs’ attorneys in California. His work has translated into multiple seven-figure verdicts and settlements, with an increasing number of his cases reaching the latter result.
While he would love nothing more than getting to the trial stage in all of his cases, Morrison understands that’s just not the way the system works in this day and age. So, in addition to his trial experience, he serves as an arbitrator and settlement conference panelist for the San Francisco Superior Court. He also is active in the American Association of Justice, the Consumer Attorneys of California and the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association, for which he served on the board for five years.