Trial lawyer is retiring after 54-year career, in wake of $1.1M jury verdict
After 54 years of law practice, a Virginia trial attorney is getting ready to retire next month.
Known for his unfailing courtesy as well as his successful representation of underdog clients, G. Marshall Mundy is about to celebrate his 82nd birthday. And, following one of his most successful years ever in 2015, it seemed like a good time to heed his oldest child’s advice “to go out on a high note” before his skills might potentially falter, he told the Roanoke Times.
Mundy’s victories last year included a $1.1 million verdict in a medical malpractice case awarded to a client who had just refused a settlement offer of $400,000 as the jury was beginning to deliberate. There was also a settlement, in an undisclosed amount, of a $7 million civil rights case filed by a man who was indicted, arrested and jailed for six days in a case of mistaken identity.
In his salad days as a solo practitioner, Mundy also handled criminal defense and family matters in addition to personal injury cases, sometimes accepting alternative payments—including moonshine—when his clients didn’t have cash.
An early trial triumph involved a day laborer charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a fellow tenant at his rooming house. Arguing that the slaying was in self-defense, Mundy won an acquittal for his client—despite the fact that the victim was shot in the back.
John Jessee of LeClairRyan has been trying cases against Mundy for over three decades, and says he has never met a more professional lawyer, or a greater gentleman.
Mundy is routinely courteous to everyone, Jessee told the Times. “Not just to judges and attorneys, but to witnesses, litigants and court personnel. He’s someone any young lawyer, if they had a chance to work with him, would benefit from the experience.”
Nonetheless, Mundy is a stalwart defender of his clients’ rights and can even be pugnacious, a retired judge told the newspaper.
Mundy himself says he is ending his legal career feeling that he has been the luckiest guy in the world.
“Most folks work to live. I feel like I’ve lived to work,” he said. “There’s no better feeling in the world than to take one of these cases for a deserving client, and to work hard, and to get a deserving award. The clients are so appreciative.”
