Since graduating from law school in 1973, Mark Bryant has practiced law in his hometown. That includes 13 years as McCracken commonwealth attorney and, since 1990, being the founding partner with former assistant prosecutor Will Kautz of what has become one of the region’s largest law firms, located across the street from the courthouse. Bryant recently discussed influences in his professional life, and his priorities away from the courtroom and office, with Christopher Ash.

The public remembers you as a prosecutor – 13 years. Now, in private practice, you seem to be doing everything.

We have really expanded. I probably would never have left the commonwealth attorney’s office. I loved being a prosecutor, I thought I could really help the public, and I did. But I also knew I had three kids who were going to go to college, and I couldn’t afford to pay for them to go to college staying over there on the state payroll. So I left and I came here.

Since then we have gotten into so many just fabulous, fascinating areas. I’ve learned so much, and I’ve also learned the public sector isn’t the only place you can help people. I’ve been able to help so many people, people who are going through some terrible times. Just yesterday I had a case in Louisville. Some poor man burned to death as a result of a defective transformer on a portable telephone. We filed a lawsuit against the company. It won’t make him come back, but it at least lets the family know the company had to pay for what happened. (He motions toward a tire, wrapped in plastic, sitting in his office.)

That tire right there. That’s a case I’ve got against a company that I filed a lawsuit against. Some man was driving that tire; it was a brand new tire. As he was driving down the road the air came out of that tire, and he’s now a paraplegic.

The God-given talent I have to practice law and hopefully say the right words – it really does help a lot of people. The rich people, they can always hire a lawyer because they’ve got money, but the working class people taking on a corporation, there is no way they can do that. I could go out and practice corporate law, but I don’t want to.

When you went out on your own in private practice, did you envision it becoming what it is today? Did you have a grand scheme?

When Will and I went out – we left the courthouse in January 1990 – we didn’t have a single client. I just knew I didn’t want to do corporate work. In the beginning I handled a whole lot of criminal cases, because I knew how to do it.

I had a case that really, really bothered me. A man had confessed to murder and they had all the goods on the guy. I made a motion for the court to suppress the confession, and the court suppressed the confession. But they still had my client with the shotgun in his hands, and the home was on fire and there was a guy in there whom had been shot and burned. One of the neighbors saw my client running out of there. My job was to take the case to trial. I offered to plead him guilty to manslaughter and take 15 years, the prosecutors wouldn’t do that. So I went to trial, and the defendant was found not guilty. That affected me, because my job was to defend this man, and I did defend him.

So I started getting away from criminal defense work. Will was my chief assistant for years and is a fantastic trial lawyer, and he loves criminal defense work – that’s what he did before he worked for me as my first assistant.

I started getting into product liability, and automobile accidents. Then this case came up against Union Carbide, and I filed that multi-billion dollar lawsuit that finally last year was dismissed, and we’re in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals with that right now.

In February of 2003, I got a call from a guy who was in Tamaroa, Ill., who knew me – I had done some work for him years ago. He said we’ve had this train derailment up here and nobody knows what to do, will you come up here and talk to us. I drove to Tamaroa and met with about eight people in a trailer. Snow was a foot deep that night. They evacuated the community up there because of these chemicals that derailed.

Those people let everybody else in town know I was interested, and two nights later we had 500 people in a town meeting at Tamaroa. We ended up filing a lawsuit against the Canadian National Railroad, and we have been certified as class action. We have been to the court of appeals in Illinois twice, now we’re in the Supreme Court. The railroad’s fighting us every way. But we keep getting favorable rulings out of the circuit court and look like we’re going to have a trial scheduled in the case next summer or fall. Now we have some 600 clients, but with it being certified class action we could have more than a thousand clients. I’ve had cases out on the river, I’ve crawled around on barges. Years ago, when a coal mine exploded, Pyro hired Kautz and me to represent them in U.S. District Court. Kautz and I wound up down in an underground coal mine – the scariest thing I’ve ever been through in my life. We’ve had airplane crashes. … No two cases are alike. Every single day you come to the office and there’s something fascinating about to happen.

The transition from prosecutor to advocate – what reactions have you seen from the community? Doctors whom you are around, did you notice hostility?

No. I represent a lot of physicians personally, and I don’t sue doctors for medical malpractice. In Paducah, I don’t know of anybody who handles "med-mal" cases. First place, everyone makes mistakes. Secondly, so many of the physicians are friends of mine, but on personal-injury cases if someone has gotten badly hurt I have to go take a doctor’s deposition, so I don’t want them mad at me.

As a boy, were you a good public speaker?

No, I was scared to death. When I was at Tilghman High School I was in speech class, and I got up to give my speech. The whole class was sitting in there, it was in the auditorium at Tilghman. I stood up and I started speaking, and I was doing quite well. Then the door opened, and when it did I absolutely lost it. … I didn’t like that and wanted to do better. I went to Boys State and I ran for office. When I did I had to make some speeches.

What really got me where I could speak publicly was just trying so many cases. It wasn’t at all unusual to try 20 or 30 cases a year I was prosecuting, plus evidentiary hearings and such. You just get accustomed to being around people and sense what they’re interested in hearing. Trying lawsuits in my opinion is the best part of practicing law, but unfortunately in private practice you don’t get to try near as many as in public office, because so many cases are settled.

Albert Jones (Bryant’s predecessor as commonwealth attorney, who had hired Bryant as an assistant and later practiced law with Bryant and Kautz) not only is a first cousin but a mentor. Albert taught me so very much that I use every single day.

After you ran for the legislature (in 1985) that was the only time you ran for anything other than commonwealth attorney.

That was when I realized the power of the incumbency. I knew I wanted to do something else. I stayed in the prosecutor’s office a few more years and tried some cases on television. The cases that were on television, people paid a lot of attention to them.

The thought of trials being on television – did you have any qualms?

I tried the first case that was ever tried on television in Kentucky – a fellow named Ralph Eugene Strong in Owensboro, a murder case. I was appointed the special prosecutor. The Supreme Court of Kentucky had just said, effective Jan. 1, 1982, we were going to allow television cameras in the courtroom. This case was tried in December 1981, so the judge got permission from the chief justice to allow television in. The defense attorney had no objection, and I had no objection. … I’ve never had a problem with television. I like it – it’s always been very kind to me over the years.

The one run at the legislature – did that cure you of any desire to run?

Heck, yes. It’s a lot easier to sit back and Monday-morning quarterback the legislature. I’m so glad I didn’t go up there. A few years of it would be really good, but people like Charles Geveden who’s been doing it 18 years, driving the road to Frankfort from west Kentucky, that is just a strain.

When I came out to practice law Albert was my partner. Albert spent all his time in Frankfort. When the General Assembly was in session he was up there for months, didn’t have time to even practice law. He made $10,000 – that is what they paid him. I had to go to Frankfort on a case and spend two days in Frankfort – I got $10,000. ... I appreciate the people who do it. It’s such backbiting, the politics.

Does it surprise you, the hostility sometimes directed toward lawyers?

In this presidential campaign, just to hear what Cheney had to say, what Bush had to say – I don’t know where they’re coming from except to protect their buddies that are so well-heeled. They talk about frivolous lawsuits. They can talk about that until the cows come home, but the fact of the matter is frivolous lawsuits get thrown out of court. Frivolous lawsuits are not going to a jury to return verdicts against corporations. The elected officials – such as Bush and Cheney – they don’t have any problem with a jury that wants to give somebody the death penalty , but they do have a problem with juries that want to take money out of corporate pockets. Judges are the ones, if the jury doesn’t do the right thing, to set it aside.

Frivolous lawsuits – I’m not saying there aren’t some, but most of the times those are weeded out by summary judgment or dismissal. … I get requests to file lawsuits all the time. I don’t file. I used to handle a lot of divorce cases. I’d rather – if people can work them out, I’d rather they work ‘em out, because I’ve got other things I can do.

Having two children going into law, does that surprise you? (Daughter Jennifer is an assistant commonwealth attorney in Jefferson County. Son David is a second-year-law student at the University of Kentucky, while son Jeff works for U.S. Bank in Louisville.)

I got a tape the other day, an audio tape I found in the basement. It was a tape of Jennifer when she wasn’t quite 2-years-old. I asked her, “Jennifer, what are you going to do when you grow up?” She said, “I’m gonna be a lawyer.” So that’s all they ever talked about. They’ve always wanted to be lawyers. I encouraged them all to go to med school. They didn’t want to. My friends who practice medicine, most of them want their kids to go to law school. The grass is always greener. …

My family is absolutely the most important thing. My wife, my children and I just have a ball. We all travel together. Everybody in our family plays golf. That is a huge passion in the whole family.

Is that a requirement for the legal profession?

It’s not, but it’s a requirement in my family. I laugh and say the family that golfs together stays together. My wife and I play a lot. We’ll be driving down the road, see a new course and pull over – pull our sticks out and start playing. … I’m in a group of men who meet every Tuesday, a prayer group. There are half a dozen of us. We’ve been doing it for seven years. One’s a Catholic, I’m Episcopalian; we have four Republicans, two Democrats. We learn an awful lot.

Is that something you learned the value of over the years? Twenty years ago, would that have appealed to you?

I grew up in the Episcopal Church. I was an acolyte in the church, an Eagle Scout. My whole upbringing was that. Then as the years go by, you get busier and busier, and that takes a back seat. But then you get older and you get to really thinking about it. It’s a large part of my values.

So, 20 years ago, if the opportunity had arisen, I would have said, "Oh, I’m too busy for that."