Albert WatkinsAttorney
(314) 727-9111
al@kwstllaw.com

Albert S. Watkins, the founding member and senior counsel with the firm is, quite candidly, beyond description. As lead counsel in countless cases garnering both national and international attention, Albert S. Watkins has demonstrated unrelenting trial skills which have rendered witnesses subjected to his cross examination incapable of speaking; caused multinational billion dollar companies and their teams of legal counsel to capitulate; and otherwise garner favorable media attention for even the most disgraced clients. Opposing counsel in the infamous The North Face Apparel Co. v. The South Butt case described the most dangerous place in the world as being the space “between Al Watkins and a microphone.”

Self-centered, egotistical, and a self-proclaimed expert in all matters, Watkins is unabashed about bringing to the public eye the irreconcilable nature of a position taken by an adversary in a case. A founding member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform with former U.S. Attorneys General Edwin Meese and Dick Thornburgh, Watkins worked to facilitate tort reform legislation in the United States. Refusing to wither in the face of daunting opposition, Watkins pushed back on behalf of Major League Baseball star Jack Clark when Clark was sued by baseball legend Albert Pujols after asserting the latter used steroids or performance enhancing drugs, publicly challenging Pujols to take a lie detector test. In State of Missouri v. James Strughold, Watkins successfully defended a white elementary school principal accused of felonious sexual misconduct involving ten African American third-grade students. The principal was fully acquitted of all charges following two full jury trials.

When the Obama mask wearing rodeo clown appeared at a state fair in Missouri and garnered international attention for making racist comments, a school district superintendent announcing the rodeo was erroneously named as the maker of the offending comments. Watkins not only reversed a global media error in attribution, including front page clarification in the Habana, Cuba state owned paper, but he brought to the fore the counterintuitive prioritization by the media of inconsequential minutia while the world erupts around them.

In Hammon v. Harris, Watkins garnered the first verdict of its kind against a young female who falsely accused a policeman of engaging in sexual relations and snorting cocaine with a female patron of a restaurant at which the policeman was working a security shift. When the defendant would not appear for her deposition, Watkins procured an order mandating the woman be brought into custody and held in jail pending her deposition. During the ensuing video deposition, Watkins swiftly got the woman to confess and admit the allegations were false. The video deposition swiftly became an internet sensation. A six-figure judgment was entered in favor of the policeman.

Watkins is also known for his “outside of the box” handling of matters, including a request for a “toasted ravioli smackdown” as a means by which to settle a case; the promotion of an “empathy seminar” at the polar bear pit at the world renowned St. Louis Zoo and his colorful court presentation in a suit against Disney in connection with an intellectual property case involving Santa Paws. During the Boston Bomber trial in Boston’s federal court, Watkins (referred to as the “Southern Attorney”) represented a Harvard professor in what became ground zero for the storied federal inquiry into the ACT scandal.

Watkins ceaselessly fought for recovery for the surviving child of Anthony Lamar Smith, an unarmed young man of color shot point blank by a St. Louis City police officer. A seven figure judgment was procured, requiring the unprecedented re-opening of discovery in a federal civil rights case to show the State’s Attorney General Office and St. Louis City Counselor’s failed to disclose crucial DNA evidence supporting the fact the deceased was unarmed at the time of the shooting.

When faced with withering attacks relating to the circumstances surrounding a public figure’s former’s spouse’s victimization by a former Governor, Watkins remained steadfastly committed to his client, despite ongoing and credible threats.

Watkins is known for his attention to detail and his intimate familiarity with all aspects of the financial industries. He is engaged to demonstrate his advocacy skills in courtrooms throughout the United States and is called upon to serve as a color commentator on legal issues and cases by national television networks.

A radio personality in his own right, Watkins hosted his own nationally syndicated radio vignette for five years — an eight minute show aptly called Watkins Word, in which he waxes poetically about the news and events of the day, employing a decidedly conservative Midwest American mindset, a mindset Watkins refers to as having been born of “rugged individualism.”

Watkins sold hot dogs from a cart during his undergraduate studies and proudly proclaims this undertaking “the best job” he ever had. The father of five, Watkins has no time to waste and enjoys the challenges associated with serving and addressing the needs of clients in a punctilious and committed fashion. Watkins does not hold hands well and admits to being incapable of singing “Kumbaya”. A cancer survivor since 2003, Watkins is proud that “nothing scares [him] anymore.”