September 17, 2025
The Am Law Litigation Daily spotlighted Complex Commercial Litigation partner Mark A. Perry’s perseverance in completing the Leadville Trail 100 MTB, a 100-mile mountain bike race at 10,000 feet elevation with a 12-hour time limit, making it one of the sport’s most demanding challenges. On his second attempt, at age 59, Perry pushed through hours of punishing terrain to cross the finish line with nearly a half-hour to spare – securing one of the coveted finisher’s belt buckles and proving, as he put it, that “you’ve just got to keep going sometimes.”
Perry explained that training and competing in endurance events mirrors the discipline required in litigation: “It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of preparation. It takes a lot of planning. You need commitment.” He added that long training rides also offer a rare clarity away from screens and phones, helping him work through complex issues in ways that often translate directly into his trial and appellate practice.
Reflecting on the parallels between mountain biking and the courtroom, Perry noted, “The pushing through when you don’t think you can is the thing that I’m not sure everybody understands,” he said. “That’s what the job – the litigation job – is about. You will get to a point in every case where you don’t want to read another deposition summary or deposition transcript or interview another witness, or run through your opening statement for the 97th time… If you’ve done something that you didn’t think you could do, and then you do it well, everything else becomes easier. It doesn’t become easy. It becomes easier.”
For him, both the Leadville 100 and high-stakes litigation demand the same mindset: preparation, persistence and the willingness to persevere when it feels impossible. It is in those moments, Perry explained, that endurance turns into conviction – and conviction is what wins cases as surely as it wins races.
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