Timothy M. McKissock is a partner of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP in Columbia where he practices in the areas of class action defense, business litigation, product liability, and mass tort with a focus on complex litigation management. Mr. McKissock’s clients include leading public corporations and independent businesses; he frequently appears in state and federal trial courts across South Carolina.

Representative of his practice, Mr. McKissock has:

• Led the defense in complex class action and multi-plaintiff cases in federal and state courts—including oral argument, brief-writing, design and management of litigation-related document databases, coordination of class discovery, and courtroom presentations;
• Obtained summary judgment for a national insurer in a class action, prompting client to use his case management and briefing model throughout the United States;
• Led the defense and defeated class certification in a 20,000+ member putative class action involving alleged damage to and devaluation of real property ultimately securing full dismissal;
• Defended complex, multi-plaintiff claims involving more than 100 distinct purchase transactions—including successfully presenting issues of first impression before South Carolina courts in such multi-plaintiff matters and developing creative methods for efficiently managing and trying cases;
• Litigated a high-profile, multi-party trial in a matter involving alleged violations of the South Carolina Ethics Act—after dispositive motions were heard during trial, the court dismissed the case;
• In a case of national significance to the client, successfully enforced a covenant not to compete in federal district court, providing the national chemical company with a significant victory—one that permitted Mr. McKissock and the client to negotiate a nationwide settlement to prevent further breaches of the covenants;
• Extensive experience in personal injury lawsuits and matters involving product liability, premises liability, and trucking liability; litigated high profile catastrophic cases resulting from industrial and trucking accidents for leading manufacturers and national carriers; and
• Experience in real estate sales and acquisitions and recently served as South Carolina counsel in a significant timber portfolio land sale to multiple parties that collectively comprised the largest U.S. land sale since the Louisiana Purchase.

A member of the South Carolina Bar, Mr. McKissock is admitted to practice before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. Mr. McKissock currently is a member of the American Bar Association, the Defense Research Institute, and the South Carolina Defense Trial Attorneys Association. Mr. McKissock worked as a prosecuting attorney for the State of South Carolina from 1996-97, and authored the cover story, “Where Ethical Rules and Morality Conflict,” in the July/August 1996 edition of South Carolina Lawyer.

In 1994, Mr. McKissock earned a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Loyola Law School where he served as Comment/Book Review Editor of the Loyola Law Review. Mr. McKissock also studied European Law at the Tulane University School of Law. During law school, he was a member of Alpha Sigma Nu National Jesuit Honor Society, the American Inns of Court, and the Loyola National Moot Court Team. Mr. McKissock received American Jurisprudence Awards for Common Law Property and Constitutional Law, and the Honorable Robert Ainsworth Jr. Award and Scholarship, presented by the Federal Bar Association-New Orleans Chapter. Mr. McKissock earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Mary Washington in 1990.