Nathan Hittle

Nathan Hittle: In this day and age, juries almost expect it. I like that we don’t bill hours, for example. I like that, you know, the incentive is just to do the best we can. This was not a homicide case, right? I mean, I’ve had those and and you spend a lot of time with the families in those cases.

Narrator: Welcome to “Celebrating Justice,” presented by the Trial Lawyer’s Journal and CloudLex. The next gen legal cloud platform built exclusively for personal injury law. Get inspired by the nation’s top trial lawyers and share in the stories that shape our pursuit of justice. Follow the podcast and join our community at www.triallawyersjournal.com. Now, here’s your host, Editor of TLJ and VP of Marketing at CloudLex, Chad Sands.

Chad Sands: Just curious, you know, I don’t know if it was when you were a little kid or when you were graduating high school or or what, but tell me the story about why you wanted to become a trial lawyer.

Nathan Hittle: Yeah. Well, a trial lawyer specifically probably not until I was in law school. I do not come from a family of lawyers. I come from a family of musicians. And I can talk a little bit more about that later, but got very interested in high school and college and civics and politics and government and all of that. And I think that kind of led me to law school. And I showed up and didn’t know, you know, exactly what practice area or where I wanted to go, but wanted to do some sort of public service and had the opportunity as a one L to observe a jury trial in the city of Richmond. And I think it was at that moment that I thought, you know, that doesn’t look too hard. I could do that. Famous last words, because it turns out it is hard. But that is, I think, what led me down that path. I became a prosecutor in the city of Richmond for about 10 years after law school. And, you know, got to do public service, got to be involved in government in that capacity, got to interact with a lot of different governmental agencies in the city, primarily law enforcement, but but a lot of other agencies. And, you know, develop my trial skills that way before landing with Gray Broughton as a personal injury lawyer.

Chad Sands: So right out of law school, you spent about ten years in the prosecutor’s office bringing down and charging bad guys, doing things around Virginia.

Nathan Hittle: Yeah. I did everything from you know traffic infractions to homicides and in between. And it was a great experience, especially for what I do now, but also just get to see and work with on a daily basis all types of people who live in our city here in Richmond.

Chad Sands: And really I guess get some real trial experience. I mean a lot of people don’t get that trial experience, especially right out of law school, but you got time in the courtrooms pretty much right away.

Nathan Hittle: I was in court probably two or three days a week, on average, maybe more, lots of jury trials. But beyond that, I mean a lot of bench trials and procedural hearings and things of that nature. And so translating to what I do now, by the time we go to court, we’re well enough prepared and I’m so used to that that that that feels like the natural place to be, as opposed to all the the pretrial steps in the litigation process. I think for a lot of personal injury attorneys or civil attorneys in general, even if they are able to get some trial experience, it’s probably the other way around. And so I think that’s one of the things that makes our firm unique is that all of our attorneys at some point or another were I think mostly prosecutors, but have done some criminal law. Most of them served in the military or JAG lawyers. I am not. I did not serve. I think I’m the the lone wolf who didn’t. But but it kind of gives us a different perspective on how to go about doing this work. And I think it ser served me well so far.

Chad Sands: Do you remember, was there kind of like a moment or did it had been building where your time as a prosecutor you felt was coming to an end, or did you get fired and had to figure it out? Or…

Nathan Hittle: No, no. I’m still on good terms with my my former office. I have a lot of friends there that occasionally will joke with me about coming back. But but it it it was a combination of things. One of the big ones was just financial, which is that I I had my law school loans forgiven after doing public service for ten years. So that that kind of like freed me from the obligation to be in public service. And then, you know, with that wanting to use my skills and see what else I could do with them. And this particular niche of the law seemed like a good place to use those skills. I like that that it’s a little bit entrepreneurial. I like that there’s really no ceiling on what you can achieve. I like that we don’t bill hours, for example. I like that, you know, the incentive is just to do the best we can in what’s right for the case and not really anything else. So… And I like that it’s on us to build a case much in the same way that a prosecutor would be charged with doing and not just sit back and play defense. So there are a lot of things about it that I thought translated well.

Chad Sands: Yeah. And you are at Gray Broughton who is veteran led, but it sounds like you’re the only one who’s who’s not a former vet, is that right?

Nathan Hittle: That’s correct. served in the armed forces. I don’t know how got through the screening process, but my dad and sister both served and then I think my grandfather on my mom’s side served, so it runs in the family to a degree, but but it’s not something I’ve done.

Chad Sands: I think one area and you mentioned it is that you do have some of the experience as a prosecutor. And I know Gray was a JAG who kind of focused on the prosecutor side. When I interviewed him, I I reminded him he was the Kevin Bacon in “A Few Good Men.”

Nathan Hittle: That’s right. I think that’s Sharif’s favorite movie. So there’s been a few references to that around here.

Chad Sands: For sure. It’s hard not to when I talk to you guys, a lot of PI lawyers, a lot of trial lawyers always bring up that movie. But I think that kind of connects you too. And you mentioned that what makes your guys’ firm unique a little bit is the is that focus and experience on the prosecutor side. What makes you unique as a trial lawyer, though you you not just the firm?

Nathan Hittle: Government. I would say one of the things that I really specialize in or kind of developed as a unique area while I was still at the at the Commons Attorney’s Office here is my use of digital courtroom presentation. It’s something I really relied on a lot. I found it to be beneficial for a lot of different reasons. And I kind of gravitated to that as like my style of presenting a case. I see more and more of it. But it’s still not as much as I would expect. And I think in this day and age, juries almost expect it. And I know we tried a case recently, a few months ago in Winchester where I helped put that together for most of the trial on our side and the other side really didn’t have any of it. And we spoke with some of the jurors after the trial and they commented about the fact that not only did they you know, find us entertaining and engaging, but some of the exhibits and points that the other side was trying to make, they just didn’t understand. And I think it’s because it wasn’t like really presented to them. And I think when you can I you know the one of the benefits that I like to talk to people about is that if you can show somebody something and really demonstrate it to them, they don’t necessarily have to believe you. Right. I mean, I want to be credible and I have to be credible as the advocate. But I think it can help build credibility if you say to them, here’s the deal, and then you can show it to them and do that over and over and over and ve and kind of in their mind verify it. And then when you get to the point where you have to say, and now I need you to do this for my client, you’ve built up trust with them for that reason. So that’s a long-winded answer, but I think that regardless of the type of case to the extent that I can use it and it’s effective, that’s what I try to lean…

Chad Sands: Something tells me you’re probably a little bit more advanced than just kind of single PowerPoint slides where you point and click. Are there some real tools that are using or are there some digital technologies that you utilize to kind of tell that story and build that trust with the jury? Is it more animatic?

Nathan Hittle: Yeah, I do use PowerPoint a lot. I’m not, you know, an expert at it, but I think I’m I’ve developed skills in using it for what I need it to do. I love video and I love, you know, breaking down video into digestible clips or zooming in and really focusing people on what I need them to focus on, using tools in PowerPoint to like draw people’s attention to particular pieces of documents or video evidence. We one of the things our firm does is we try to the extent that we can to video record every deposition. And when we can use those in trial, we’ll incorporate those video clips. And I and I think, you know, one of the things I’ve learned over time is that although I love to like geek out on this and really try kind of dress it up as much as I can, you don’t want to distract from the actual point you’re trying to make with all the the you know, whiz bang stuff. And so being judicious about the length of, you know, video clip you’re using or how it’s presented, you don’t want to to draw away from what you’re actually trying to get people to focus on either. So I know in the personal injury world people do rely on the arms kind of recreations and animations of events and injuries and things of that nature. And I I look forward to getting more into that over time. It’s not something as a prosecutor that we really had to rely on all that much. But I think it’ll incorporate well with with what I’ve done already. And I look forward to to using it more in the future.

Chad Sands: Well then you mentioned it, so now I have to ask. Tell me about your little music career then and your music background.

Nathan Hittle: So both my parents actually they’re now retired, but they were collegiate jazz professors.

Chad Sands: Like like “Whiplash,” like the drum instruction.

Nathan Hittle: Yeah, I think I think they would characterize themselves a bit differently than the than the professor in that movie. But yeah, similar idea. And because of that, I just like grew up around that music and their college programs. I’m a pianist, so so I still play around town here semi professionally. And…

Chad Sands: Like the piano bars at like the hotels or something.

Nathan Hittle: Yeah, yeah, occasionally or like private corporate events or weddings or wine bars or whatever that wherever there’s live music. I think that influenced me in a couple ways. The first thing is that growing up, as much as I, you know, liked all of that and everything that went with it, I pretty quickly determined that I didn’t want to teach and that making a living as a musician is a hard life, unless you like hit it big. And I didn’t want to go in the military. And those are kind of the three paths. And so I I I just decided, you know, I’m always this is always something I’m gonna want to do, but I need to find another route to make a living. And that I think is ultimately kind of, you know, we talked earlier about what led me to law school. But in terms of is my musical experience influencing me and my presentation as a lawyer, it has had an impact. Cause it one, it’s just like becomes part of who you are. But it also meant that by the time I got to college and law school and then started my career, I was used to like performing in front of people. And I was used to like improvising and thinking on my feet and reacting and interacting with other people as a performance, you know, and and that whole dance and having a stage presence and all of that. And those are skills that I draw on when I’m in the courtroom. And it’s not a conscious thing. It’s not like, I’m gonna go pull this trick out of my bag. It just becomes like something you’re more comfortable doing. And and I think that’s benefited me.

Chad Sands: Yeah, it’s like muscle memory. You know, if you’re you’ve been in the situation, you’ve been on the stage, you’ve been able to think on your feet and as you said, improvise. Are you kind of like a jazz pianist? Yep.

Nathan Hittle: Yes.

Chad Sands: Okay. Well, let’s get back to the stories about the cases that matter. And I know you’ve had a few, even going back to your prosecutor days, but can you share a story about one case that has really stuck with you and you can’t seem to just let go and always pops up in your mind?

Nathan Hittle: I’ve had several notable ones, both now as a plaintiff’s attorney and as a criminal prosecutor. The one that I go back to, and I think, you know, for a lot of attorneys this may be the case. You start out, you’re kind of trying to find your way, and then at some point you you kind of like land your first whale or or you you or you have your first big verdict, your first big win where you feel like I did well here and I proved to myself I can do this. Zooming in and for me, that was a case that I prosecuted back in twenty twenty in the middle of COVID. There was a defendant who was essentially stealing people’s cars by fraudulently obtaining the title through the video Department of Motor Vehicles. And he would take the title and then go get a key made for the car and go back and steal the car and then video pawn the car through a local auto auction and get the proceeds. And this went on for a while. Although I love And, you know, people started complaining to the DMV and there was an investigator who kind of put the pieces together and figured out what had happened. And you you might rightly think like, well, how did they not catch this before the cars went missing and got sold? But the way the process worked, they didn’t. And so we prosecuted that gentleman and I think he ended up getting convicted of like 17 or 18 different felonies, either so including money laundering and some pretty pretty big offenses for what seems kind of like a petty crime. But part of what made that case notable to me was one, that was really the first one where I embraced the digital presentation. And I and I and it was somewhat out of necessity because there were so many charges, so many victims, so many documents and different things that I think I needed people to follow along. And it was during COVID. And so the protocols in court for how you could do all of that were a little bit more restricted. And I just realized that, you know, unless I can put things on a screen and have people track it as the evidence is coming in, they’re they’re gonna get lost. So that was a big part of it. The other part was that we had last drop five or six or seven different individual people who had been victimized and coordinating with them to try to what led you know, get them just simply get them all in court on the same day. Right. These are people who are living their lives out in society. And then they have concerns about, you know, am I going to be made whole? How’s that going to happen? And and, you know, working with them through that process. And then you know, you’ve got law enforcement, but you’ve got people in the community, you know, people who ran these auto auctions and car dealerships and the like who were not victimized. They were just, you know, a passive player in this system. And we needed them. We needed them to come to court to do their civic duty and just say, here’s what happened. And having all of that come together at once, where you’ve got about 20 different witnesses over a three-day trial, and then, you know, have the jury go out and deliberate a half hour and come back all guilty was kind of like a moment for me that proved, hey, I can do this. You know, if I can do this, I can do a homicide case, I can do a big personal injury case, I can do whatever needs to be done when it comes to putting the pieces together in a courtroom and getting a good result. My musical explain me, you know, that that was kind of what opened the floodgates.

Chad Sands: You know, I was wondering actually if was it an inside job or something? Was someone at the DMV working with them to transfer the titles? Sounds like no.

Nathan Hittle: But it needs to buy.

Chad Sands: Q has kind of just found found a big loophole or some way to do it online or something.

Nathan Hittle: That’s yeah, so there’s this process that if a car is abandoned, you can apply for the title if it’s on your property. Well, these cars were just parked out on the street. And and maybe, you know, I think he tried to claim that, hey, like the registration or the inspection had lapsed or whatever. But the reality was they were just parked in front of these people’s homes and they were driving them and it’s not like they were an abandoned car. And he would just go to the DMV and say, “Hey, this is abandoned. This is the tag. I want the title.” And then after a month, he would get it. And the people that the car belonged to would not even know he had done that. And and then next thing you know, he’s got the title and he’s taking the car.

Chad Sands: Were these like I mean, ’cause I’m assuming if you were really savvy, you would be doing these with Lamborghinis and Ferraris or something. Or was he trying to just kind of stay not too flashy and…

Nathan Hittle: I don’t think he was targeting high value cars. I think one of them was a pretty nice Lexus that, you know, this this older lady had. But I think more the criteria was is there some reason I can claim that it’s abandoned even though it’s not? And then secondly, there’s a geographic footprint close to where he lived that he was looking for these vehicles.

Chad Sands: Is there some type of civil case after your criminal? Like were the people able to get any money back for their Lexus that that guy stole and then sold and pocketed, you know, twenty grand or whatever?

Nathan Hittle: Yeah, so I think two of the cars well, one of the cars made it through the auction and got sold. In the middle of COVID, one of them made it to the auction and had been flagged as stolen. And so when it w went to go through the auction, they recovered it. Two of the other ones I think the police recovered before he got them to the auction. And then one of the victims he had obtained the title, but he never stole the car. And the reason he never stole it is because the victim in that instance did not live at the place where the car was parked when he got the information off the car to go get the title. Thus proving that none of these were really that abandoned to begin with. Right. You know, he was parked at his girlfriend’s house or something, and that’s where this guy found it on the street. And then when he goes a month later to go get it, it’s that’s not where it is. So so it was kind of a a a a mixed bag. This was not a homicide case, right? I mean seven I’ve had those and and you spend a lot of time with the families in those cases and learn all about their life and and what the victim in that instance meant to them and you spend a lot of time with them. I did spend so a lot of time with these people, but you know, they had their car stolen. So it’s a little bit different and and I think by the end of it they wanted justice, but they wanted to move on with their life. And part of the challenge for me was keeping everybody on board that was needed, you know, the whole time and and realizing that that’s kind of what justice required because unless I did that, he wasn’t going to be held accountable. And this may happen again to the next person who’s going to be inconvenienced. So it’s a bit of a different role in the system in that regard. You know, if that happened in a personal injury case, then you might not really have a case by the time you get to court. But as a prosecutor, you’ve got a duty to the public at large. So… Yeah, I mean it was a great learning experience and and like I say from there, you know, it it it launched me into many other cases that were more of a of violent nature in terms of the crime. But I learned a lot from that case in terms of like I said, presenting it in court, crowding the witnesses, and then also dealing with documentary evidence in a in a way that sometimes violent assault cases don’t have.

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Explore what’s possible at www.cloudlex.com. Now here is this episode’s “Closing Argument.”

Nathan Hittle: My career as a personal injury lawyer started six months before the trial in Clark versus Grafton and Michelle Yates. Charlie Clark was 13 years old at the time that he was assaulted by his caretaker, Michelle Yates, at a psychiatric care facility run by Grafton, Incorporated. This was a case that had been pending for years without any resolution and was set for trial in February of 2026 in the city of Winchester, Virginia. And somehow, whether it be luck or happenstance or me just ending up in the place that I was supposed to end up, I was on the trial team for this case along with my colleagues at Gray Broughton Injury Law. The trial proceeded over the course of four days. And lo and behold, at the end of the trial, I was tasked with giving the closing argument in our case. And I felt incredibly grateful to be trusted with that task and wanted to do everything I could not only for our client and his family, but for my colleagues who had entrusted me with that task and with the case that they had spent years building and trying over the last week. And when I got up to give that argument, I thought about all of that, and then I realized that I had been here before, that I had developed the skills I needed to do this, and that I had everything I needed to advocate well for my client and get a good result. And I did my best and I delivered the closing I thought was befitting of our team and our client and our case. And I told the jury that this case deserved a verdict and a large award. We asked the jury for $38.4 million, and after deliberating three hours, they returned a verdict of $20 million. And so in my first jury trial as a plaintiff’s attorney, I am lucky to be able to say that I was on a team that obtained a $20 million verdict. And I’m not sure how many people can say that. And I tell that story not to say that I’m the world’s greatest plaintiffs attorney because I’m not, or that I’m naturally talented at this because I’m not, but because I had spent time building the skills necessary to step into this role. And I was part of a team that trusted me and that gave me the tools to be successful, and then let me do what I feel I’m best at. And that experience was a heck of a way to start a new career as a plaintiff’s attorney and I cannot wait to see what the future holds in that regard because if that’s the start, the sky’s the limit.

Narrator: You’ve been listening to Celebrating Justice presented by CloudLex and the Trial Lawyer’s Journal. Remember, the stories don’t end here. Visit www.triallawyersjournal.com to become part of our community and keep the conversation going. And for a deeper dive into the tools that empower personal injury law firms, visit www.cloudlex.com/tlj to learn.