BRIEFS
RISING STARS
FLIGHT PATH
GEOFF GRINDELAND SAVED LIVES AS A NAVAL AVIATOR; NOW HE SAVES THE DAY
FOR PILOTS IN COURT BY AMY KATES
As a Navy pilot, Geoff Grindeland tamed a
beast as big as a school bus.
“Literally as big as a school bus,”
Grindeland stresses, “if you look at the
dimensions on paper. People walk up
to it and are blown away by how large it
actually is.”
The Navy craft in question was an
MH- 53, and Grindeland’s job behind its
controls, one of many posts he held while
serving, was to look for mines in oceans
and detonate them before they could
destroy U.S. ships.
Now a litigator at Seattle’s Mills Meyers
Swartling, Grindeland spends much of his
time defending pilots involved in crashes.
“I had a really enjoyable time in the
Navy,” Grindeland says. “I was there for 11
years, and it was an easy peacetime. I got in
after Desert Storm and made the decision
to leave right before the attacks on 9/11.
“I loved the people I worked with—some
of the best you could ever ask to serve
with. But I came to a point where I had to
make a decision to either continue with
flying or do something else.”
He chose the something else. “I was
very excited at the prospect of using a
part of my brain that I didn’t use every
day flying,” he says. “Not to say that
flying doesn’t take a lot of brain. But it’s a
different part of your brain, more scientific
and methodological; whereas law is more
abstract and academic.”
Initially worried about making the
transition—“It felt like I was completely
starting over,” he says—Grindeland was
surprised at how nicely piloting and
the law dovetailed. There’s the obvious
parallel: his practice area. “I represent
airplane manufacturers, companies that
operate helicopters, [and] airlines and
pilots, and because I have the same license
that pilots have, I know pilot procedures; I
know how airplanes and helicopters work.
That translated well.”
Then there are the not-so-obvious
parallels, like the ones Grindeland sees
between litigation and flying search-and-
rescue missions on Whidbey Island, where
he once was stationed. “We were primarily
there to rescue Navy pilots who had to
eject [from their aircraft], but that didn’t
happen too often, so mostly we provided
service to law enforcement agencies
and civilian search-and-rescue missions
around Western Washington. I did lots of
searching for and rescuing injured or lost
hikers, mountain climbers who’d fallen
and gotten injured or killed. People in
crisis,” he says. “It’s the same thing in
litigation. People in a crisis call you for
help, depending on your special skills and
training to help them through. There are
things out of your control—like weather in
a search-and-rescue mission, or maybe
the written terms of a contract in dispute
in litigation—and in both situations, the
better you prepare, the better chance of a
good outcome.”
Grindeland’s mixed practice of general
litigation and aviation work allows him
to indulge two sides of his personality.
“I particularly enjoy the aviation crash
cases, the technological aspects of it, the
pilot procedures, the aerodynamics, the
engineering,” he says. “It really satisfies the
Then there’s general litigation. “There’s a
real human element in these civil cases, so
it’s a great balance for the technical stuff,”
he says. Grindeland typically handles jury
inquests, representing officers and police
agencies. “Any time a civilian is killed where
there is law enforcement involvement,
[King County] holds a jury inquest. This
is not a fault-finding inquiry; that comes
later if a civil suit is brought. This is a fact-
finding inquiry in which a jury is tasked with
determining all the facts surrounding an
officer-involved shooting or death. This is
a very important event in an officer’s life,
and they’re usually emotionally distraught.
Even when an officer did what they had
to do when faced with the circumstances
they saw that day, taking a life is hard.”
Grindeland’s role is even more personal
because of an incident that happened a
week before he started law school.
