Attorney Vicky Nunn talks life, career with the Ken Nunn Law Office

Family has been the foundation of Vicky Nunn’s life and career for as long as she can remember. As one of two children to renowned personal injury attorney Ken Nunn, it was practically inevitable that she’d find her way from Texas back to Bloomington to join the family business.

The elder Nunn died in December, officially placing the Ken Nunn Law Office in Vicky’s care, an honor that she feels she and the firm were well-prepared for by her dad.

“We’re a family here, and so, the person working in the office next to you, they’ve been here 30 years,” she said. “Everybody in our office is working on the same schematic. We’re all doing what Ken taught us to do and what Ken wanted us to do.”

In a conversation with The Indiana Lawyer reporter Maura Johnson, Nunn shares what the transition has been like in leading the firm, including what led up to her decision to join and where she hopes to take the firm next.

You’ve been through several changes since your father passed away in December. How are you and the team doing?

We miss him dearly. But we are doing what he taught us to do, and that’s to continue his legacy. And we’re working hard every day and taking care of our clients. And we’re doing what he said we did the best, and that is helping our clients.

What sparked your interest in the law and what led up to you going to law school and joining the firm?

I graduated from Indiana University in elementary education, and I moved to San Antonio, Texas, and taught school for 12 years.

I loved my teaching experience, but during the time when I lived in San Antonio, my dad would come visit me every six weeks, because we’re really a close family, and he would say, “I wish you’d go to law school” for two reasons. The first reason: He was always worried about my mother, and if something happened to him, he wanted to make sure that the law office was still there to help take care of her in her elderly age. And then second, he said, “Our clients need you.” So I put him off, and I put him off. Then one evening, he was down there [in San Antonio], and we would go out for dinner every night, and I said, “I have a surprise for you. I’m going to take the LSAT, and I’m going to go to law school.” He was so excited, and that started the wheels in motion.

Was there ever a point in your law school journey where you found interest in other parts of the law besides personal injury?

“No, not really. … We grew up hearing how my dad wanted to do more to help, and so that’s just what we were conditioned to do. When I went to law school, very few people were saying they were going to go into personal injury [law]; they were going to go work for big law and corporate law and tax law and patent law, and I just wanted to do personal injury and insurance law.

What about the field, and growing up around your dad, drew you to personal injury?

Because you get to help so many people. If you get hurt, you don’t know what to do, you don’t know who to trust, you don’t know who to turn to. And the insurance company’s coming after you. [They’re] saying they’re going to make it all better. But are they really going to make your life better?

No, they’re not. So, you really need somebody to come in and look at what’s happened and analyze it and really personalize it to what you need to be made whole again.

What has the transition into leading the firm been like?

[My father] set up a team, a board of directors, and if something happened, I had a person in place for every department. We had all of these department heads in place, and so, when the awful time came, I was able to lean on each one of them. We’re just continuing what we’ve been doing, and that’s my dad’s legacy. He set that up for me, and for our office, and for our clients. And so we just continue doing what we we’re doing.

Has there been anything particularly challenging or unexpected in your new role?

My dad is an advertising expert — the shoes are, like, size 20. He knew what to say and when to say it, and how to say it, and he would get on there and snap his fingers. I struggled with, if I start advertising on TV, I don’t know that my personality is so direct.

What I had to do is I had to realize who I was, and I was given the opportunity to just be me. I’m a little softer and a little bit more compassionate, and I’m a mom. And that’s how I operate. And my dad was just full of fire and fury. But how lucky that I was able to come in, and he had a marketing department. And so we were able to set that up immediately and try to recreate and share the wonderful work of his legacy that we’re continuing to do.

How do you feel about having your face on buses around Indiana?

I asked my daughter, because she’s living here in Bloomington. I said, “What did you think?” Well, I didn’t think about this: On the side of the bus, there’s a panel that has a vent, and it’s gray. So she goes, “They’ve got you on the grayed-out portion!” I guess he wanted me right up there with the bus driver.

But you do what you have to do. It’s really exciting, and people are sending me pictures that they see me on the bus and everything. And I’m just thrilled. I’m thrilled. What an opportunity to get to do all of this and to continue what we were doing before. So, I’m game. We’re gonna do whatever we have to do to show our clients and to show our community we are still here and we’re fighting for everybody’s rights.

Is there anything specific you want to do differently from your dad as leader of the firm?

I’m working on getting more computer savvy. My dad was zero computer; he was 100% paper. We purchased legal software that now we can text our clients. So I feel like we’re just cruising right into 2026, and how exciting that I can text a client within five minutes and we’re communicating?

We’ve got a wide range of ages here. We’ve got age 19 through 70 at our office, and what a wonderful span of knowledge that we have. By doing that, everybody brings new ideas to the table. Maybe we want to communicate with a 23-year-old differently than we want to communicate with an 80-year-old, so we are always looking at that to meet the needs of our clients.

A lot of the attorneys I speak to talk a lot about mentorship in the legal community and how that’s something that could be improved. How do you feel like having a wide span of ages at the firm helps the next generation of attorneys?

I think that you graduate from law school and you have a bunch of knowledge, but I don’t know that you’re ready to talk to a client or step in their shoes or understand how to help them. So I do think it’s important for older attorneys to work with younger attorneys. In our office, I may have a 70-year-old attorney and a 30-year-old attorney, and they’ll throw off ideas on each other, and it really puts you in a different perspective.

I think the one thing that’s hard to teach in a law school classroom is fear of the unknown. Your clients want to know: “What do you think? What’s going to happen? What could be the outcome?”

And you’ve got to be right there telling them it’s going to be OK … and that’s something that we lose in the law school classroom situation. I know several wonderful attorneys, and they work together, and they’re very kind. How lucky we are in the state of Indiana to have such a wonderful group of lawyers that, although we’re on different sides, we are all working together, and that makes our state pretty remarkable.

What are some lessons your dad taught you that you want to carry forward into this next phase of the firm?

My children grew up with family dinner, and we were at all the school events, and anything — we’ve just all been there. That’s the way we are. I have a tendency with our clients in our law firm [that] if you call me and tell me you’ve been hurt, you’re just like my daughter, you’re just like my sister, you’re just like my mother. I instantly pull you into my family, and that’s how I want to take care of you.

And I think my dad did the same thing. He would call our clients at 9 and 10 o’clock at night, and he’d be like, “What are you doing?” and he would send them the oldies but goodies music; he would send them those because he liked to listen to the oldies. I think he just figured he wanted to bring you into our family too, and how nice that was, because everybody is so important to us. I don’t know how you can do the job any other way.

So that’s what I want to continue. That’s the way I’ve always done things, for 23 years.

What do you want to tell clients and the public about the law firm heading into this next chapter?

We are an Indiana law firm. We keep up with the Indiana laws. We are ready to file a lawsuit if we need to. We are ready to do whatever we need to do to get you compensated.

To our clients: call us. Let’s see how we can help you. We’re ready to do that. You call us for free, and we’ll tell you how we can help. And we’ll start working on your case immediately.

“You want a fighter on your side. … You don’t want to push over. You don’t want someone who wants to hand you a quick settlement or a tiny check. You want somebody who’s willing to go the distance, and sometimes the best compensation you get is at the courthouse steps and in front of a jury. And that’s what you want. You want to be able to ask or discuss with your lawyer, “I think I want to go further with this. My case is worth more.” What a luxury, and we’ll give that to you.•