2014–15 VSB President New President Is Willing to Make Noise for the Legal Profession by Gordon Hickey K EVIN E. M ARTINGAYLE is a thoughtful person who prides himself on preparation, but he has an impulsive streak too. He was nearly through with law school before he even made up his mind to be a lawyer, he said during a recent interview, but after thinking it over, he decided to follow in his stepfa-ther’s footsteps. It was in law school that he came to another conclusion: “I was either going to be a courtroom lawyer or I wasn’t going to be one at all.” Those decisions — to be a lawyer and, specifi-cally, a trial lawyer — were arrived at after some serious thought. On the other side of the Martingayle ledger is the lifeguard story. He went to Virginia Beach on Memorial Day week-end in 1988 and was standing outside the Avamere Hotel on 26th Street when he “saw some guys running around on the beach.” He didn’t know what they were doing, but he wanted to find out. So he hopped over the railing — wearing a jacket, tie, and loafers — and ran across the sand to ask them. The first thing they did was tryout for the lifeguard positions. They got the jobs and then went looking for a place to live, which they also found the same day. That was a good thing, because they had nowhere to live, no backup plan, and very little money. He spent the summer in the life-guard stand on 26th Street in front of the now-gone Avamere. Martingayle went from the beach to law school at the University of Virginia. He spent the next summer as a clerk at Kaufman and Canoles. The second summer he split between a firm in New Orleans, Williams Mullen in Richmond, and back at Kaufman and Canoles. “At the end of all that I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a lawyer. I enjoyed the people but I wasn’t positive that I really wanted to do it yet.” “What reignited my interest, really, was taking Trial Advocacy,” taught by Thomas E. Albro. “I thought he was great. … He had a very intellectual approach,” Martingayle recalled. “He seemed somewhat bookish and yet was “ 10 We have to continue to beat the drum publicly and with the members of the general assembly that we need to have a fully-funded judiciary.” incredibly witty and incisive.” It was Albro who ignited that goal of being a courtroom lawyer. He put off taking the bar exam in the summer of 1991 for “one last hurrah It was lifeguard tryouts and there would be another in two weeks. So he and a friend “packed up our car assum-ing we’d get jobs,” and drove back to the beach from Richmond. VIRGINIA LAWYER | June/July 2014 | Vol. 63 on the beach” as a lifeguard. He experi-enced “being rather poor” that summer. “I decided to get my act together. And I knew I was going to get married. I’d met the girl of my dreams.” He and his future wife, Elisabeth, got engaged in November and he took the bar and passed it in February 1992. It was his stepfather, a lawyer, who taught him the value of careful thought and clear writing. His former law partner, Moody E. “Sonny” Stallings Jr., taught him to “have guts, don’t be afraid of anybody.” From his current partner, William C. Bischoff, “I learned the value of thorough preparation. When he walks in a court-room you can be guaranteed he’s more ready than whoever is on the other side.” And from uncounted judges he learned “the value of listening and being calm, because my instinct was to be too fired up, too argumentative,” he said. “I still have to remind myself of this.” Martingayle joined the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association early in his career. He served a stint as chair of the Employment and Civil Rights Law Section of the association. He saw that there was an opening on the VSB Council, but, “I wasn’t sure I wanted to be on the council.” As the filing deadline neared he called the bar and found out no one else was running so he put in his name. Just before the deadline, another candidate entered the race. Martingayle won. He started serving on a number of bar committees, including the Standing Committee on Legal Ethics —“It goes to the core of what we do.” www.vsb.org