James W. Kitchens received his undergraduate degree from the University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg, and earned his Juris Doctor degree at the University of Mississippi at Oxford. He was elected three times as district attorney for Copiah, Lincoln, Pike and Walthall Counties.
Mr. Kitchens has served on the Board of Governors of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America for more than twelve years, and has been co-chair of ATLA's national Key Person Committee during that same period. The ATLA Board of Governors unanimously elected him to serve on the association's executive committee for 1997. Mr. Kitchens has also spoken at numerous ATLA legal education programs on both civil and criminal law subjects, and at other legal seminars throughout the United States.
In 1998, Mr. Kitchens successfully litigated an heirship paternity proceeding on behalf of the only child of blues legend Robert Johnson, more than sixty years after the musician's death. That judgment has since been upheld in appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court, assuring income to the client and his family from music copyrights that will not expire until 2048.
In August of 1999, Mr. Kitchens served as co-counsel for the plaintiffs in a jury trial that resulted in one of the largest verdicts in the United States in cases involving so-called "vanishing" life insurance premiums.
|
 |
|
| IN
BRIEF |
| Law
School |
| University of Mississippi, J.D., 1967 |
|
| Undergraduate |
| University of Southern Mississippi, B.S., 1964
|
|
| Admitted
to Practice |
1967, Mississippi
U.S.D.C. Northern and Southern Districts of Mississippi
U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
U.S. Supreme Court
|
|
| Affiliations |
Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association
Association of Trial Lawyers of America
Mississippi Attorneys for Constitutional Justice
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Mississippi Bar
Copiah County Bar Associations
Magnolia Bar Association
Hinds Bar Association |
|
| Honors |
|
|
prev
attorney