Jim Kinsel is a trial attorney who focuses on business litigation and unfair business practice claims, including business conspiracies, trade secret misappropriation, fiduciary duty breaches and other business torts. In addition, he has handled corporate control disputes, representing both minority and majority shareholders. Through dispute resolution, his practice safeguards his clients’ critical business assets, such as their business methodologies and ownership rights.

Jim is a member of Protorae Law's Unfair Business Practices Team.

Mr. Kinsel has extensive experience handling complex litigation matters within federal and state courts. He offers his clients early strategic advice to allow them to determine how best to resolve a dispute and he is often successful in negotiating favorable resolutions before litigation costs escalate. When litigation becomes necessary, Mr. Kinsel’s trial and motions practice allows him to assertively advance his clients' interests.

Electronic discovery is integral to Mr. Kinsel's case management. He is experienced in quickly assessing the appropriate scope of electronic discovery for each litigation matter and sending out early electronic discovery requests. His electronic discovery efforts allow him to provide his clients with an up-front evaluation of their cases' strengths and weaknesses.

After graduating from law school, he clerked for the Honorable Norman K. Moon in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia.  He then joined the Jefferson Law Firm, which became the Tysons Corner office of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC.  Jim left Womble Carlyle to become a partner in Williams Mullen's Tysons Corner office where worked before forming his own firm. 

Mr. Kinsel received his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law where he served as the presiding justice for the Lile Moot Court Final and Semifinal rounds and articles development editor for the Journal of Law & Politics. He also received extensive litigation training at the Trial Advocacy Institute. He received his bachelor of science degree from James Madison University, where he was published in the Madison Journal of Undergraduate Research.

Jim lives in Oakton, Virginia and is active in the Northern Virginia community.

Representative Matters

• Corinthian Mortgage Corporation v. Summit Financial Group, et al., Fairfax County, Virginia Chancery No. 187513. Represented the plaintiff, a direct-mail mortgage company, in a business conspiracy action against its former employees and a start-up competitor. The plaintiff’s claims also included breach of fiduciary duty and tortious interference with its contracts and business expectancy. The plaintiff received $10.5 million in settlement and breakup fees as part of a negotiated Letter of Intent that gave one of the corporate defendants the option of purchasing the plaintiff’s parent company’s assets for $52.5 million or pay the plaintiff $10.5 million.

• Defended a financial services firm and its two founding financial brokers in a case brought by the brokers’ former firm.  The plaintiff firm claimed that in starting their new financial services firm the two brokers violated their fiduciary duties and misappropriated the plaintiff firm’s trade secrets.  The case involved the “Protocol for Broker Recruiting” that has been signed by many financial service firms, and discusses the manner in which departing financial advisers can leave their firms and the information they can take with them.

• Centennial Broadcasting, LLC. v. Burns, 2006 WL 2850640 (W.D. Va. 2006). Represented a company that purchased a radio station in an action seeking an injunction preventing the prior owner from using a substantially similar radio format on any radio station heard in the local radio market. As a condition of the sale, the prior owner agreed not to operate a local radio station utilizing a substantially similar programming format as the sold station had used. The court temporarily and permanently enjoined the prior owner from operating a radio station using a substantially similar format after the court found that the prior owner "blatantly violated the agreement." 

• University of Northern Virginia, Inc. v. Avery, et al., Fairfax County, Virginia Case No. 2008-5145. Represented the plaintiff corporation, a privately owned university, in a corporate control and ownership dispute against some of the University’s former managers, officers and shareholders. Claims brought against the defendants included business conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duty, tortious interference with business relations and violation of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act.

Publications

Article - October 8, 2009
The Use of State Statutes and Common Law Tort Theories to Regulate Business Conduct

Article - July 2009
Intentional Misconduct Could Nullify Damages Limitations Clauses in Commercial Contracts

Alert - June 17, 2009
Your Company’s Database Passwords Are Not Trade Secrets
 
Alert - March 11, 2009
Employees Who Take Proprietary Data May Violate the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act