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The following was published in the August 2011 issue of the Georgia Bar Journal, as my president’s column. (If you want to see the end notes, go to the online version of the Journal.) It does not deal with my practice as a personal injury and wrongful death trial attorney focused on commercial trucking accidents. Rather, it addresses core concerns of all members of the legal profession.

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It was a Sunday in December nearly 40 years ago at my grandparents’ rural home at Mentone, Ala., a bucolic spot best known for summer camps, midway between Chattanooga and…

This month all Georgia lawyers have a new resource for online legal research as a benefit of membership in the State Bar of Georgia. The Member Benefits Committee compared  Fastcase to the online research site that was previously provided to Georgia Bar members, and found Fastcase better in several significant aspects. Here are links to the Fastcase website, blog and user manual.

This helps to level the playing field for solo and small firm lawyers with tight budgets.

The votes are in so it’s official. On June 19, 2010, I will become President-elect of the State Bar of Georgia, and on June 4, 2011, I will be sworn in as State Bar President, taking my place in a line that goes back to 1884.

It’s a serious responsibility, but I will take care not to take myself too seriously.

This week I mailed letters to members of the State Bar of Georgia Board of Governors announcing my candidacy for president-elect of the State Bar of Georgia. On Friday, I enjoyed a lunch meeting with the Rome Bar Association.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to see how things get done in the State Bar. And I have seen how good ideas can be thwarted despite years of hard work. 

To accomplish anything of lasting practical significance for the legal profession and the public, it is essential to prudently discern what is both worthwhile and feasible, focus on…

Today I’m heading home from the American Association for Justice annual meeting in San Francisco. On Saturday, I was one of the speakers at the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group seminar.  I had a fairly dry topic, though one necessary in these difficult economic times, "Hard Times in Trucking Litigation: What to Do When the Trucking Defendant or Insurer Goes Under."

Some of the other topics covered in the interstate trucking seminar included:

  • Overlooked Issues in Maximizing Damages in a Trucking Case
  • Unique Discovery Issues in Trucking Cases
  • When Low Speeds Can Cause Big Injuries: Understanding What Happens When a Big Truck Hits a Small Car
  • Overdriving Headlights and Other Night Driving Issues in Interstate Trucking Cases
  • Truck vs. Motorcycle
  • Ethical Considerations in Interstate Trucking Cases
  • The Small Commercial Vehicle Case
  • Finding Insurance in Truck Crash Cases
  • Brain Injuries in Trucking Cases

Though I have to leave for the airport before the business meeting, I will go on the board of the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group, and will be on the faculty of the "trucking litigation college" program this fall.

This morning I met with a family who suffered a tragic loss when a tractor trailer ran over the parents late in 2008.  The mother was killed and the father seriously injured. 

They got me involved a couple of weeks after the crash when one of the sons found me on the Internet and invited me to meet with the family.  We put our rapid response strategy to work and are now on the brink of settling the case for all available insurance policy limits. 

Because I agreed to reduce my contingent fee to 20% if we settled within the first…

The organized Bar across the country makes a big point of supporting judicial independence. We should make just as big a point of supporting judicial integrity.

An article by Ian Urbina in The New York Times tells the sad tale of how two Pennsylvania judges have pleaded guilty to fraud in federal court to accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks, and now have been named as defendants in a class action suit  for the scheme to  send juveniles to private detention facilities.

While judicial misconduct is rare, where it occurs it should be addressed forcefully in order to safeguard the integrity…

Today I became the sole nominee for election as Treasurer of the State Bar of Georgia for a one year term beginning in June 2009.  Fortunately, the Bar is in sound financial condition and has a superb chief financial officer in place. It will be a great learning experience and excellent preparation for the next couple of rungs on the ladder.

As a trucking accident trial attorney in Atlanta, I find myself speaking at continuing legal education seminars around the country pretty often. This year I’ve spoken on various aspects of trucking litigation at CLE programs in Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans, and have been asked to speak at upcoming seminars in California and Pennsylvania. That’s doesn’t mean I’m all that good, just that I never learned to say no and do better than average Power Point.

Today I got word of appointment to the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Continuing Legal Education in Georgia. My thoughts trailed back 15 years to the first ICLE program I chaired, "Insurance Law for the General Practitioner," in the fall of 1993.

It is impossible to overstate the vital importance of continuing legal education to maintain the competence of any member of the legal profession in any practice area.  The minimum required CLE for all Georgia lawyers is pretty basic.  I never cease to be amazed at the lawyers who resent and resist attending continuing legal education programs and wind up getting their hours in a video replay on some topic irrelevant to their practice the week before the final deadline for the year.