Powell, Thomas M.

Tom Powell earned his B.A. in 1979 at the University of South Alabama, where he was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa (a national leadership honorary society) and his J.D. in 1992 at the Cumberland School of Law of Samford University.

Before he started law school at age 39, Tom had served as a helicopter crewman and electronics technician in the Coast Guard; and had worked as a writer and editor for the Birmingham Post-Herald and the Mobile Press-Register, as a publicist, as a photographer, as a lobbyist, as a professional campaign worker, and as a bailiff for Circuit Judge Robert G. Kendall III in Mobile.

Tom has been a plaintiff's lawyer during his entire legal career. He began practicing law in 1992 with the Birmingham firm of Emond & Vines, where he did the appellate, research and trial-level writing work until 1993, when he moved to the Birmingham firm of Taylor & Taylor, where he did general trial work and tried a variety of cases to jury verdicts and never had a defendant's verdict returned. In 1996, Tom opened his own practice as an appellate lawyer and brief writer for other lawyers throughout the State of Alabama.

In 1999, Tom came to work for Marsh, Rickard & Bryan, where he does the appellate, research and trial-level writing work for the firm. He is admitted to and has practiced in all Alabama state courts, all United States district courts in Alabama, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States Supreme Court and the United States District Court for Colorado.

Since 2008, he has been an Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at the Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, where he teaches Alabama Trial Practice and Procedure to second- and third-year students. Since 2000, he has been appointed to successive terms as a member of the Alabama Pattern Jury Instructions Committee – Civil, the organization that writes and publishes jury instructions for use by Alabama trial courts. The Committee is composed of retired Supreme Court justices, active and retired circuit judges, and attorneys.

In 2009, 2010 and 2010, Tom was recognized by his peers as one of the "Alabama Super Lawyers" and he was recognized as one of the "Top Attorneys in Alabama" in 2011 by Business Alabama magazine.

Tom has made more than a dozen CLE presentations, on topics ranging from the latest developments in Alabama premises liability law to the nuances of the work product doctrine to the intricacies of appellate rules and procedure.

In his spare time, Tom enjoys making photographs and fly fishing in various parts of the world. Ask him about the "Chile Quake Tour of 2010"! Ask to see his Chile photos.

There are more than forty reported decisions printed in the Southern and Federal reporters in which Tom was counsel of record and wrote all or most of the briefs. Those include: Ex parte Cooper Tire & Rubber Co., 987 So. 2d 1090 (Ala. 2007); Sparks v. Total Body Essential Nutrition, Inc., 27 So. 3d 489 (Ala. 2009); Smith v. Yanmar Diesel Engine Co., Ltd., 855 So. 2d 1039 (Ala. 2003); AutoZone, Inc. v. Leonard, 812 So. 2d 1179 (Ala. 2001); Allmerica Financial Life Ins. & Annuity Co. v. Miller, 775 So. 2d 132 (Ala. 2000), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1012 (2000); Hales v. ProEquities, Inc., 885 So. 2d 100 (Ala. 2003); McKinney v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 33 So. 3d 1203 (Ala. 2009); Watts v. Sentry Ins. Co., 876 So. 2d 440 (Ala. 2003); Defriece v. McCorquodale, 998 So. 2d 465 (Ala. 2008); Corbin v. Smith, 842 So. 2d 610 (Ala. 2002); Ryan v. Hayes, 832 So. 2d 21 (Ala. 2002); Ex parte Bailey, 814 So. 2d 867 (Ala. 2001); Dickinson v. Land Developers Constr. Co., 882 So. 2d 291 (Ala. 2003); H.R.H. Metals, Inc. v. Miller, 833 So. 2d 18 (Ala. 2002); and Cotten v. St. Bernard Preparatory School, 20 So. 3d 157 (Ala. Civ. App. 2009).