As the Managing Partner of Halloran Farkas + Kittila LLP, Ted Kittila is an experienced litigator and legal advocate with over twenty-five years of experience. He served as lead counsel on complex corporate and commercial disputes, including expedited litigation in the Delaware Court of Chancery (a court Kittila clerked at in 2000), litigation involving Delaware LLCs, contract interpretation for his District Court in Delaware, and litigation in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. While Kittila’s home office is in Delaware, he routinely practices in courts in other jurisdictions across the country.
Kittila has served as the Chair of the International Section of the Delaware State Bar Association, and has spoken on topics including legal ethics and trial advocacy both domestically and internationally. As advocate, advisor, and litigator, Ted Kittila is well-equipped to teach others and pass on his hard-earned wisdom in the field. He’s agreed to join us to briefly share his thoughts on his professional experiences, trial advocacy, professional integrity, and litigators’ responsibilities in the modern legal context.
What was your inspiration to go into the legal field?
I come from a small town in Delaware called Seaford. There weren’t many attorneys in my town, but I came to know one named Brian Shirey, who was my Sunday School teacher. As I got to know Brian more, he would challenge me to debate various issues, and we had incredible conversations. I also got to know Karl Haller, who had a law office in Georgetown, Delaware, down the road from Brian’s office. Mr. Haller served as one of the Public Defenders. At that time, you could work part time as a Public Defender, and you could have a civil case practice—Mr. Haller did that. I had the honor to work for both Mr. Haller and for Brian, and they both served as mentors to me, allowing a kid from a small town the opportunity to get first-hand experience in the law.
How would you define the core of your legal practice?
So much of what I do as an attorney is about ‘fair play.’ The idea of ‘fair play’ is the basis for the Common Law and for the principle of Due Process. If you try to explain Due Process to someone unfamiliar with the concept of being fair, you might as well be talking to a wall. Due Process is the legal norm of what is required in our system to be considered playing fair with our neighbors.
One of the key issues in the law is whether the concept of Due Process morphs over time. Is what was considered ‘fair’ in the past the same as what we presently consider ‘fair’? I think there are some universal norms that everyone can agree on. But our Courts have also seen the risks with having a definition of Due Process which moves from procedural norms into the substantive areas of life.
What does effective trial advocacy look like?
A few years ago, I was appointed as Adjunct Faculty at the Rutgers Law School teaching Trial Advocacy specifically. I have also taught trial practice at continuing legal education programs through the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. If I can pass on a single piece of wisdom, it’s that effective trial advocacy is adaptable and resilient under pressure. I learned that first-hand when I—while on vacation—answered a phone call from a man in need.
He was being represented together with his business partner by an attorney who suddenly pulled out from the joint representation right as the case was ready to go to trial. The client needed help immediately; his life was collapsing around him. I jumped in to prepare a case to go to trial. The attorney that was withdrawing, however, told me that I just needed to follow his lead. With the case going to trial in under 5 days, I was sitting at my desk preparing as best I could.
The night before trial, the other attorney advised that his client had gone bankrupt. I would be going into trial on my own.
I went to trial against a major league firm. Here I was, doing cross-examination without the benefit of having taken the depositions, without the benefit of the other attorney’s knowledge of the case. After three days at trial, the Court realized that it could not rule in favor of the other side. My client was saved.
What is the purpose of a legal advocate, in your eyes? What are the responsibilities of a modern litigator?
Little has influenced my view of the legal profession more than Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. While it is often remembered as a classic story about race, justice, and moral courage, I have always seen it as a powerful example of what an attorney should strive to be. Atticus Finch is willing to take on a difficult and unpopular case because it is the right thing to do. He understands that doing what is just does not always earn approval from the community around him. Instead, he demonstrates that true character is revealed when a person stands firm in their principles despite criticism, pressure, or opposition. The legal profession is at its best when lawyers advocate for those who need a voice, defend the rule of law, and approach every case with integrity.
One of my first jobs as an attorney was working as a clerk in the Public Defender’s Office in Sussex County, Delaware. While working in that job, I would sit in the “lock-up” with my boss and his clients, discussing their cases, negotiating plea agreements. I remember asking my boss whether he felt right defending some of the people that he was required to defend, and he told me that he was literally the only thing keeping the full weight of the State from crushing every client he was appointed to represent. He knew that each of them had a right to counsel, each had a right to be defended.
When I became an attorney, I had to take the same oath that my boss had taken decades earlier. In the years since then, my firm Halloran Farkas + Kittila LLP has represented world leaders, large businesses, cutting edge start ups, massive pension funds, and thought leaders. At the same time, we have taken on cases against both the State and Federal Government, seeking to vindicate the rights of people that face discrimination. At the current moment, I have the honor of serving as lead counsel in two cases against the States of New York and Delaware seeking to overturn the assisted suicide laws in both states.
