Jim Neale lives in Charlottesville, with his wife, Willa, and their three children. He is a trial lawyer at McGuireWoods, LLP. His varied practice focuses on high-exposure trials in courts across the country. He has substantial mass tort and class action litigation experience and currently serves as co-chair of the firm's Food & Beverage Industry Team. 

His first-chair trial experience includes nuisance, personal injury, product liability, premises liability, transportation, insurance coverage, land valuation, and ERISA cases. He he has taken dozens of cases to verdict in both state and federal courts. 

Jim is frequently quoted by the media on the topic of food safety and has written extensively on the topic He is the co-author of Food Safety Law, published by American Lawyer Media and now in its ninth edition. He is a member of the faculty of the National Trial Advocacy College at the University of Virginia. 

Elected as a Virginia Law Fellow in 2014 and an ABA Law Fellow in 2015, for several years Jim has been singled out by BTI Consulting Group as a Client Service All Star in product liability. While earning his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, he won the John Kingdon Award for Outstanding Oral and Written Advocacy and the Stephen P. Traynor Award for Outstanding Appellate Advocacy. He was also named the winner and outstanding oralist in the William M. Lile Moot Court Competition. 

From 1990 to 1995, Jim served as an Airborne Ranger and Light Infantry Platoon Leader in the U.S. Army and was awarded a Ranger Tab, Senior Parachutist's Badge, Air Assault Badge and Expert Infantryman's Badge. Following law school, Jim served as a law clerk to the Honorable Richard L. Williams, Senior U.S. District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia.