A native son of Tucson, Burton J. Kinerk has spent most of his life entrenched in the Tucson community. He is a graduate of Tucson High School and attended the University of Arizona on a baseball scholarship, earning a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 1957. Afterwards he became a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, serving as a paratrooper-intelligence officer for the 18th Airborne Corps, before returning to Tucson and earning his law degree from the University of Arizona Law School in 1962.
Burt is nationally certified by the American Bar Association as a Specialist in Civil Trial Law and Civil Practice Advocacy. He has over 50 years of expertise in civil trial work at the local, State and Federal level, with an emphasis in serious personal injury, wrongful death, medical malpractice, and complex multiple party plaintiff lawsuits such as flood litigation and product liability cases. He is a former private pilot and has been involved in litigating significant aviation crash claims.
Over the last 35 years Burt has also served as a registered sports agent, advising, negotiating contracts and mentoring several professional athletes and coaches with Southern Arizona ties, including among others, Lute Olson, Sean Elliott, Chuck Cecil, Tedy Bruschi, Michael Bates, Mario Bates, Byron Evans, Joe Salave'a, Chris McAlister, Larry Smith, Mike Candrea, Ricky Barnes, Dan Forsman and Crissy Ahmann Perham.
Throughout his distinguished career Burt has earned recognition as a top attorney by many organizations and publications, including an AV Preeminent Rating by Martindale-Hubbell® since 1980, as well as being named to Best Lawyers in America, Super Lawyers Magazine's Southwest Super Lawyers, and America's Top 100 Lawyers' Lifetime Achievement Award, among others. He was the Co-Founder of the Arizona's Finest Lawyers Foundation, and has served as President of the Tucson Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) as well as the Arizona Trial Lawyers Association (now the Arizona Association For Justice, AzAJ). Burt also maintains his membership in many professional and legal organizations, including but not limited to ABOTA, AzAJ, and the American Bar Association's National Board of Trial Advocacy. Burt has also been a guest lecturer at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers School of Law, and for several legal associations, most notably the Arizona State Bar, Western Trial Lawyers Association, and Pima County Bar.
Burt and his wife Nancy raised four children and have eleven grandchildren.