The Big Guy
Pierce Hamblin’s tactical weapons include humor, listening skills
and powers of persuasion. Plus an Elvis shrine
BY RJ SMITH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHAUN RING
PIERCE W. HAMBLIN GREETS VISITORS
warmly. “Come in! I have a gift for you,” he
says with a grin. He smiles while you wait
for it. Then he pulls out a bag of M&Ms.
He likes to make a good first impression.
He likes to make a good last impression,
too, as well as a good everything-in-
between impression.
This is not hard for the 6-foot- 7
litigator, mediator and teacher, muscular-hulky at age 63 like a Kentucky oak. He
has achieved an impressive distinction
in each of the fields he has entered. But
when you meet him, what most comes
across is a will to connect.
Hamblin is a partner at Landrum &
Shouse, which employed him 37 years
ago, fresh from law school. He was born
in Lexington and has remained there ever
since. When he was growing up, Lexington
had about 25,000 people, and it seemed
like everyone knew everyone else. With a
population of more than 300,000, it doesn’t
feel like it’s changed that much. “It still has
that small-town culture to it,” he says. “It’s
friendly, and you can go five miles any way
from my building and you will be in horse-
farm country. So at the end of the day, after
fighting in court or doing tough mediations,
one can take a five-mile jaunt and be in a
peaceful place. I find that comforting.”
The defense lawyer has made a
reputation primarily for his work on
insurance cases. When someone is in an
accident and is sued, his or her insurance
company hires Hamblin to represent its
client. He has worked many products
liability, automobile accident, and medical
and legal malpractice cases.
Hamblin cites as noteworthy examples a
pair of “negligent-pursuit” cases involving
police who faced civil suits after high-
speed chases ended in car crashes in which
people died. “In Kentucky there have been,
in the last five or six decades, only three or
four of these things tried to verdict,” notes
Hamblin. “And I’ve been in two of them,
so I take a lot of pride in that fact.” In both
cases, “the jury came back in favor of what
I believe to be good officers and public
servants. While I certainly took no joy
whatsoever in the facts and results of the
accident, I believe justice was done.”
In 2006 Hamblin took a chance and
began exploring the growing field of
mediation and arbitration. It paid off. In
recent years, mediation has emerged as
an ever-more important means of settling
conflicts as costs have skyrocketed just to
get a case to the courthouse steps.
“Even a straightforward whiplash case,
where your car is hit from the rear, takes
thousands of dollars to get in front of a
judge and jury,” he says. And after 37 years,
“I still cannot tell you what a jury is going
to do. So the risk is great for both sides to
get a resolution for folks.”
The essence of mediation he says, is in
identifying two values common to every
case, then molding them into a single way
forward. The first is the human value, or
the personal cost. It’s what a victim would
explain over the dinner table: “Let me tell
you how this accident has affected my life
and my family’s life.” It’s something you
can’t put a price tag on, so it can be hard
for people to cast aside in mediation.
Then there’s what Hamblin calls the
legal value. It’s what a mediator is there to
help the parties see. It amounts to getting
them to ask themselves, “If I tell my side
of the story to 12 strangers and the other
party tells their side of the story to the same
12 strangers, what is the jury going to do
for me?” It’s hard for injured parties to do,
Hamblin notes, because they have to put
their tragedy aside and examine both sides.
“I tell them very straight up, ‘I don’t
know if I can sit in this chair today and do
what you want to do to settle this case.
If someone hurt my family, I don’t know
if I could set it aside. But if you’re bigger
than I am, you’re going to have to set that
aside.’” It’s a humble and canny strategy
for bringing parties together. “You’ve got
to be very fair to both sides—mediators
