Ken Nunn was a 16-year-old high school dropout. He didn’t read a novel till his sophomore year, and found more enjoyment in comic books and movies than he ever did in a classroom.
Now 76, Nunn runs what U.S. News calls one of the best injury law firms in the country. He has not forgotten his alma mater, IU, and adopted home, Bloomington, either. He’s made sizable donations to IU athletics, greek organizations, local hospitals, and fire and police departments. Nunn said he is glad to have a chance to give back.
“It’s like being out in the ocean in a rowboat,” he said. “What’s good for you is good for me.”
Five decades after he got started, Nunn’s firm has won about $685 million for its clients. It’s afforded him the opportunity to live a luxurious lifestyle. He owns two Rolls Royce vehicles, along with other luxury cars. He grew up in public housing and was never able to establish a true home, a very different life than the one he currently lives.
However, it was the lack of an established home that got his life on track.
He moved to another city because his mother had obtained housing. Nunn said he started school up again there. The school was different from his last and more encouraging, he said.
“When I was a sophomore in high school, we had to read a book and do a book report,” he said. “It came my turn, and the book I read was by Steinbeck, ‘Of Mice and Men.’ I got up before the class, and I told them what the book was about.”
Nunn said he was so excited and happy about his presentation that his teacher made him come to the afternoon class to present. He showed up and presented with the same excitement and received the same cheer.
“Well, what they didn’t know was that was the first book I had ever read, ever, sophomore in high school,” Nunn said. “My granddaughter is a sophomore, and she has read maybe over 1,500 books. To be that deep into your life and education and only read one book.”
Nunn said all he read were comic books and comics in newspapers. He was reading at a seventh grade level.
Nunn made a lot of new friends at his new school and in that mix was his future wife. Her father was a state trooper, and Nunn said that made him nervous.
“I was one of those guys with the leather jacket with the collar turned up,” Nunn said. “The leather jacket meant that you don’t mess with this guy — that was before guns and knives and things. I’ve been in about a hundred fights, fist fights, and I lost about half of them.”
Eventually he would marry the girl, and it was his marriage that helped shift his life, he said.
After a couple years at Southern Indiana University he transferred to IU Bloomington, even though his grades weren’t up to par. IU admitted him solely because his degree required him to complete a certain amount of courses in Bloomington.
When Nunn arrived in Bloomington one of the first movies he saw was “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Nunn said he thought the lead actor, Gregory Peck, looked so suave and good-looking that he wanted to be a lawyer.
“Did I believe that I was smart enough to be a lawyer? No, I didn’t,” he said. “I came to the IU law school, and I asked them if I could qualify, and they said no.”
However, they gave him a sliver of hope. Nunn had to improve his grades, and if he did, the school would find him a spot. If IU didn’t work out, he was prepared to go to the University of Kentucky or Mississippi, the latter of which because at that point it had the lowest academic credentials in the country.
“I was going to be a lawyer no matter what after seeing that movie,” Nunn said.
He said he worked very hard in his junior and senior years of college to improve his grades. His hard work eventually paid off, and he was accepted into the law school.
Nunn likes to stress his academic limitations because it allows him to talk about what he knows how to do best. He said his friend once told him he was far from being one of the best lawyers in the state or even his own law firm. However, Nunn’s success came in his organization.
“That is my strength — my determination, being organized and wanting to win more than the other person,” he said. “It makes up for all my lack of skills academically.”
Just like his hero, Larry Bird, Nunn said he is just a poor kid from Indiana who had to earn everything he had through determination.
It was with the same determination he opened his first law practice in downtown Bloomington with a card table and four chairs.
Nunn worked as a lone practitioner for 10 years before he could expand. He said it was a learning experience.
“Many times I came home to my wife and said, ‘there’s no money this week, honey. Sorry,’” he said. “And she would give me lunch money. I would put ads in the paper and buy cars and take them home, polish them up and then put them in the paper the next day or so.”
Nunn would make around a hundred dollars for each car. He said it was the comfort in knowing he could pay his secretary and put food on the table that made his second job worth it.
His break came in 1974 when lawyers were approved to advertise freely.
“Now my whole life changed,” Nunn said. “I started advertising.”
Injury law cases were the most common, so naturally Nunn’s firm decided to specialize in them. Nunn now appears on television 421 times a day and has a $3.5 million annual advertising budget.
To this day, he said a lot of lawyers still look down on him for advertising. Nunn said lawyers were taught in school never to advertise.
That clearly has not stopped Nunn. He said he still goes to work everyday and often works on weekends. He calls all potential clients because he never forgot what his mother told him about being a respectful lawyer.
Nunn said he has never intended to leave Bloomington or retire. Bloomington is his home, and his work continues to challenge him every day.
“I love Bloomington,” Nunn said. “This was a new home for me, and I had no desire to leave. “
