Clients at front and center for Hupy’s Kyle

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Thomas Kyle says the only way that personal-injury lawyers like himself can effectively present clients’ stories before a jury is to get to know them.

“I go to clients’ houses,” he said. “I know them. On Friday, I’ll be at an 87-year-old guy’s house. He lost his wife and got injured in a car accident. And I’ll probably have a whiskey and talk because he doesn’t have anybody, because he lost the only person in his life. I represent him for that.”

And it’s those clients and the injustices they face that Kyle, one of the founders of Pitman, Kyle, Sicula & Dentice S.C., said keeps him motivated. They are also the reason he’s spent years curating what he calls “requisite variety,” a term usually heard in cybernetics.

“You’ve got to have a whole repertoire of responses for all the different things you face,” he said. “So you expose yourself to absolutely everything. Now you can pick and choose whatever each case needs.”

But collecting those techniques isn’t easy. Kyle, who now works for Hupy & Abraham SC, says he is always learning. He recently finished a book about how screenplays are written and incorporates his knowledge in his opening and closing statements. Kyle also spent years traveling, away from his wife and two sons in Hartland, to attend seminars on being a more effective trial lawyer. They all teach different things, he said, and every one comes with assurances that its way is the only way.

“But nobody has it down,” Kyle said. “I think you just have to pick and choose a little good stuff about everything.”

For example, one of the programs he graduated from, Trial Lawyers College, was founded by the trial legend Gerry Spence. The techniques taught at Trial Lawyer’s College, he said, are based on the idea that, in order to tell a client’s story well and relate to a jury, a lawyer must know who he is and what makes him happy.

Kyle said that one thing he learned about himself at the Trial Lawyers College was that he has a hard time saying “no” when people ask for help.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I need to say ‘no’ and take on less responsibility, but it’s hard.”

In the end, Kyle said, he learned that what makes him happy is getting justice for his clients.

His recent move from PKSD to the Milwaukee office of Hupy & Abraham SC was also fueled by that desire for justice for his clients. Hupy’s resources, Kyle said, are helping him do just that.

“You can prepare a client’s case,” he said, “and present a client’s case the way you want, the way it needs to be presented. And nothing’s going to stop you.”

At Hupy, Kyle works mainly on complex litigation and nursing-home-malpractice litigation. He brought a team with him, including Terese Halfmann, a registered nurse and lawyer.

“It’s not just like I came alone,” he said, “I was fortunate that they joined me and made this thing happen … I can’t imagine what I’d do without her.”

Shared values was another reason for the move. Hupy, he said, gives back not only to the community, but to the causes that clients support. That giving is important to Kyle.

“Of course, that’s big with me … You even care about your client’s cares,” he said, “to the point that if a client is involved with a certain charity, we will give money to that charity.”

Wisconsin Law Journal: Tell me something about yourself that few people know or expect.
Thomas Kyle: One thing people probably don’t know, and I don’t know if they expect it or not, … two things: I have mixed martial arts training. So, way back in the day, I started with Brazilian jujitsu and muay thai. I’m a muay thai instructor. So Duke Rufus is a huge MMA guy in town … he used to have a boxing gym on First and Virginia, where I and some other professionals would learn to box and do muay thai during the lunch hour. That turned into jujitsu and other stuff. I got my kids into it. Is that one thing that’s weird? Yeah. Also, before I went to law school, I worked in the construction trades for six years. I wasn’t that guy who just graduated from college and went to law school. I worked for big contractors. I was even out in the field working, swinging hammers … and doing a lot of different things.

WLJ: What was your least-favorite class in law school?
Kyle: I would say property because they had a concept called a rule against perpetuities that no one understands and still don’t understand. So, it was such a hard concept that it was extremely frustrating. And everybody was frustrated by it. I did well in law school … Everything else I could probably handle but the rule against perpetuities never made any sense to me.

WLJ: If you weren’t a personal injury lawyer, what do you think you would be?
Kyle: The construction industry, I completely liked it. It was great people. But probably I would be an investment banker because my wife worked in that, retired from that, and I always thought her stories were more fascinating.

WLJ: What’s your favorite Milwaukee-area restaurant? What do you usually get.
Kyle: Jose’s Blue Sombrero. It’s in Brookfield. It’s a Mexican restaurant. Table side guacamole, and then I go pork enchiladas mole.

WLJ: What’s you’re favorite tech gadget?
Kyle: I’ve got a 14- and 15-year-old, so I try to keep up as much as I can on tech gadgets. But they’re boys, so … they’re more into it, and they’re always looking at their phones. … It has to be my big Note 4. I try to put absolutely everything on it.