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Merle Haggard sang, “The roots of my raising run deep.” So do Ken Shigley‘s.

Ken Shigley’s childhood hone

His rural childhood home was a modest cement block two bedroom, but full of love. His dad and uncle, WWII combat veterans, built it on weekends one pickup truck load of materials per payday. The house included an indoor toilet and a black and white TV by the time Ken started school. As educators his parents tried hard to expose him to academic and cultural opportunities. (Dad was principal of a 12 grade country school and mom…

During a 1964 speech on re-apportionment, Rep. Denmark Groover (D-Macon) nearly fell over the state House railing trying to adjust the hands of the clock to keep it from reaching the mandatory hour of adjournment. The clock ended up falling. MANDATORY CREDIT: Joe McTyre / The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Stopping the clock in Georgia.  In 1964, Rep. Denmark Groover (D-Macon) hung over the gallery rail to stop the clock from reaching midnight on the last day of the legislative session. (AJC file photo by Joe McTyre)

When an injury or death claim arises from a crime, in Georgia the clock stops on the statute of limitation up to six years when a criminal prosecution is not complete. That extension of the limitation period now applies to other defendants in the civil case, even if the criminal is never caught and prosecuted.

In July 2016,…

chancellorsville 1863Some of the best books for trial lawyers are not about lawyering at all. Over the next few months I will explore some of them in this blog.

Jim Butler is arguably the most successful plaintiffs’ trial lawyer in my generation. He has won numerous eight and nine figure jury verdicts even in the most conservative Georgia counties. Success breeds success, so he is able to pick among the cases with greatest potential, and then has the skill and resources to maximize them.

At a recent Georgia Trial Lawyers luncheon, Jim said that the best book for trial lawyers is…

GSA RBR Renovations
U.S. Courthouse, Atlanta

Dax Lopez is a judge of the State Court of DeKalb County, nominated by lame-duck President Obama to fill a vacant seat  on the U.S. District court in Atlanta, as an apparent bipartisan compromise to fill the seat with Republican approval.  Surprisingly for an Obama nominee, Judge Lopez is a conservative Republican, a longtime member of the conservative Federalist Society, and a graduate of the Coverdell Leadership Institute which is  the forerunner of the current Republican Leadership for Georgia program. He was initially appointed as a judge by conservative Republican Governor Sonny…

Every few weeks or months, we see news stories about breach of data security in medical centers or health insurance companies. Most people hearing that probably just shrug, figuring it’s not as bad as breach of credit card or other financial data. Earlier this year, for example, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia revealed that as many as 80 million customers of the Anthem Blue Cross had their account information stolen. My family and I were among them.

Most phackereople do not realize that breaches of medical data privacy can be just as expensive as a financial date breach

…

If you snooze you lose. It is a harsh reality that people who are unaware of the time limits to file suit for a loss may lose all their rights to compensation forever.

clock1Recently, I met with a highly intelligent, well-educated person who completely misunderstood the limitation period. This person thought that the two year statute of limitation for personal injury in Georgia referred only to submitting a claim to an insurance company rather than actually filing suit in court.  Merely talking and negotiating with a claims adjuster does not stop the clock from running. The claims adjuster never would…

As past president of the State Bar of Georgia and a seasoned trial lawyer, I’m impressed by the recent string of jury verdicts in Georgia, two of which exceed $70 million. Several of these were won by lawyers who, like me, have attended Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College programs and closed door, members-only seminars of the AAJ Trucking Litigation Group.

Some of these verdicts will be compromised or cut in post-judgment motions and appeals, and some will be simply uncollectable. Prudent lawyers know that there is no appeal from a settlement, and big verdicts usually result from someone guessing wrong…

At least once a month for years, we have gotten calls from someone complaining about malfunction of an airbag in a motor vehicle collision. Usually it is a matter of an airbag not deploying in a situation in which it was never designed to deploy.

Most front airbags are designed to deploy in a direct frontal impact, and side air bags are generally designed to deploy in direct side impact. There are variations between models as to whether an oblique angle impact would cause an airbag to deploy, but generally a sideswipe collision will not activate an airbag.

Moreover, most…

As our mornings turn cooler and trees change from green to yellow and orange, memories of the sights, smells and pleasures of autumns past come flooding back.

Memories of sights, colors and smells can stir our emotions and a deep, instinctive level.

When I see trees changing colors and the first frost on a meadow, I go back in time to autumns in the forests and fields of Lookout Mountain where we lived and Shinbone Valley where I went to school as a child.

The smells of new mown grass, burning leaves and hot cider stir memories of playing pickup…

Most folks think of creativity in terms of art and music. But creativity is important to breaking new ground in any field.

Ancient people viewed creativity solely as divine inspiration. That is still as important as ever. But by modern times creativity was viewed as a form of human intelligence that bridges the gap between routine productive talent and the vision to develop something new.

Creativity requires the ability to approach problems with both solid knowledge and a fresh eye, combining old principles in new ways. Creativity can be highly productive if it is accompanied by hard work and perseverance.…