Our People

While having just graduated law school in 2007, J. Ryan Heiskell has years of first-hand knowledge and experience with the law and particularly with products liability litigation. After obtaining his undergraduate degree from DePaul University in Chicago, IL, Ryan sought to attend medical school in Virginia. After moving there with his wife and while waiting out his year to establish residency, he began working for his father at the Michie, Hamlett law firm in Charlottesville, VA. Ryan's father had been trying cases against Ford Motor Company and other manufacturers for years and needed help with a new case, a sudden acceleration case involving the death of a 13-year-old child.

After two years of discovery battles, millions of pages of document production and countless hours of legal research, Ryan decided he didn't want to go to medical school any longer; he wanted to be a trial lawyer. That case was Huber v. Ford and was tried to a multi-million dollar Plaintiffs' verdict.

In 2004, Ryan moved his wife and 8-month-old son to Ada, OH to attend law school at the Ohio Northern University. Following his second year of school and a second baby boy, he received a phone-call from Ed Bell in Georgetown, SC, who had heard about Ryan's work on sudden acceleration cases and asked for his help in preparing for an upcoming trial. Ryan spent the summer with Ed's team, working day and night arming for battle. That case, Watson v. Ford, was also tried to a verdict, and Plaintiffs were awarded $18 Million Dollars. Ryan returned to Ohio and completed his final year of law school.

Since then, Ryan and his family (3 sons) have permanently moved to Pawleys Island, SC, where he enjoys his role as the leader of the firm's automotive safety/ product liability division. He manages cases across the country against Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Kia, and Nissan, which involve defects in the following areas: sudden acceleration, handling and stability, roof crush, general occupant protection, seatbelt spool-out and inertial buckle unlatch, door latch/lock mechanism, seatback failure, seat-track failure, folding seat release mechanism failure, airbags, window glazing, park-to-reverse, brake system failures, warnings, general malfunction, and speed control deactivation switch fires.