Attorney Profiles

Tom Powell joined Marsh, Rickard & Bryan in 1999, as the firm's appellate lawyer. As such, he has practiced in the Alabama appellate courts, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. In addition to his appellate work, Tom writes the "heavy duty" briefs that the firm files in the trial courts.

Tom received his B.A. in 1978 from the University of South Alabama, where he was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honorary society, and his J.D. in 1992 from the Cumberland School of Law.

Before starting law school at age 39, he worked as a writer and editor at the Mobile Press-Register and the Birmingham Post-Herald, as a publicist, as a lobbyist, as a professional political campaign worker, and as a bailiff for the late Circuit Judge Robert G. Kendall III in Mobile.

The Supreme Court of Alabama has appointed Tom to three consecutive terms on the Alabama Pattern Jury Instructions (Civil) Committee, which is composed of former justices, judges and attorneys. The APJI Committee in recent years has been revising and promulgating jury instructions in "plain English," a task that Tom relishes. In 2007, Tom was invited by the Cumberland School of Law to teach Alabama Trial Practice and Procedure as an Adjunct Professor to second and third year law students. He also co-authors, with David Marsh, the "Recent Civil Decisions" column that regularly appears in the Alabama Association of Justice Journal and provides readers with a synopsis of key decisions of the Supreme Court of Alabama.

Tom was voted by his peers in 2009 as one of Alabama's Super Lawyers, in the area of Appeals.