Kevin Christopher and Bill Killian have joined Chattanooga-based law firm Cavett, Abbott & Weiss.
Christopher is the founder of Ridgeline Venture Law, Tennessee’s first B Corp law firm and a 2018 Best for the World Honoree for community impact.
Before founding RVL, Christopher led bioinformatics, bioscience and biotech development and licensing activities with top secret security clearance at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
He has also steered large scale partnerships in renewable energy and synthetic biology at the University of California at Berkeley and consulted with the Small Business Innovation Research program at the National Institutes of Health.
Christopher is a Tennessee Bar Association Leadership Lawyer and regularly speaks on corporate social responsibility, intellectual property and leadership.
His past community involvement includes serving as a Putnam county commissioner in Cookeville as well as a board member to several environmental and social impact nonprofits.
“Having someone with Christopher’s background in corporate social responsibility and intellectual property is a great fit for a city of entrepreneurs like Chattanooga,” says Barry Abbott, managing member of Cavett, Abbott & Weiss. “We’re looking forward to connecting Kevin with companies who will benefit from his expertise.”
Killian served as U.S. attorney for Eastern Tennessee from 2010-2015. He now brings a wealth of knowledge in government relations, federal investigations, administrative and regulatory compliance and civil and criminal matters to Cavett, Abbott & Weiss.
Killian has more than 40 years of trial experience representing and defending clients in sophisticated cases, including high stakes fraud mediations and negotiations, national security investigations and multimillion-dollar corporate settlements, including negotiating the largest criminal settlement in the history of the Eastern District of Tennessee.
Before joining Cavett, Abbott & Weiss, Killian was a member of Leitner, Williams, Dooley & Napolitan’s government investigations and white collar criminal defense practice groups.
Killian currently serves on the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility as a hearing officer. He’s a member of the Chattanooga, Tennessee and American bar associations and the Brock-Cooper Inn of Court and is a Sustaining Fellow of the Tennessee Bar Foundation.
Killian lectures at ABA-sponsored events and state legal organizations. He’s been recognized as a Top 100 Criminal Defense Attorney and a Tennessee and Mid-South Super Lawyer for criminal defense.
He’s a member of the National Association of Former U.S. Attorneys. He currently serves on the board of directors of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville Alumni Association.
“With more than four decades of legal experience, Bill’s passion for the law and the philosophy he applies to it mirror our own,” Abbott says. “His expertise in high profile and complex cases is unmatched and we’re looking forward to the representation he’ll be providing to new and existing clients.”
Source: Cavett, Abbott & Weiss