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Today on the podcast, Robin and Lester interview Lance McMillian acclaimed legal author and scholar.
Lance obtained his B.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Phi Beta Kappa and his J.D., University of Georgia, summa cum laude, Order of the Coif. He is a full-time professor of law at John Marshall School of Law where he teaches Torts, Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, Constitutional Law Seminar, First Amendment Seminar, White Collar Crime, Domestic Relations, Depositions, Law Office Management, Remedies in Context, Scholarly Writing.
Professor McMillian joined the Atlanta’s John Marshall faculty in 2007. Before embarking on a teaching and writing career, Professor McMillian wore many different hats in the legal profession, including those of civil litigator, commercial arbitrator, and certified mediator. The focus of his practice centered primarily on complex litigation—class action prosecution and defense, business torts, constitutional torts, and discrimination. In 2002, he became a founding partner of the law firm of McMillian & Camp, LLP. Following its inception, the firm was approved as lead counsel by numerous federal and state courts in class and collective actions arising under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. In this role, Professor McMillian successfully negotiated several six and seven-figure settlements. As a neutral, Professor McMillian mediated and arbitrated over 100 active lawsuits.
Professor McMillian’s writing career is just as diverse. He is a novelist and creator of the Atlanta Murder Squad series. The first book in the series, The Murder of Sara Barton, won a prestigious B.R.A.G. Medallion and became a #1 Best Seller Legal Thriller on Amazon. His nonfiction work has appeared in such legal journals as the North Carolina Law Review, the Washington and Lee Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, the Alabama Law Review, the Tennessee Law Review, the Southern Cal Interdisciplinary Law Journal, and the American Journal of Trial Advocacy. He also contributed a chapter for Lawyers In Your Living Room! Law On Television, a book project from the American Bar Association that also featured essays from actors Sam Waterston and James Woods. A number of federal and states courts, including an opinion by Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, have cited Professor McMillian in their opinions.
Professor McMillian is married to Justice Carla Wong McMillian of the Georgia Supreme Court. Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School (AJMLS) is a private for-profit law school in Atlanta, Georgia. It was founded in 1933 and named for John Marshall, the fourth chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. AJMLS is accredited by the American Bar Association. It was among the first southern law schools to integrate. It is in Midtown Atlanta and is accredited by the American Bar Association. AJMLS offers five J.D. programs: full-time day, part-time day, part-time evening, accelerated/spring start, and a Criminal Justice Certificate Program (led by MacArthur Genius Fellow, Jonathan Rapping).
To Kill A Lawyer (2021)
Death to the Chief (2021)
The Murder of Sara Barton (2020)
Lance’s latest novel is “Hard Way to Die,” the 4th in the Atlanta Murder Squad series, and takes place at a Georgia State Bar Annual Meeting on Jekyll Island.
Lance McMillian – Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School
https://www.gatriallawyers.net/
To learn more about the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation, visit fairplay.org
Today on the podcast, Robin and Lester interview Douglas Ammar & Rami El Gharib of the Georgia Justice Project who focus on restorative justice.
Douglas B. Ammar has been an active presence at Georgia Justice Project (GJP) since its beginning in 1986. Starting as a volunteer, then joining as a staff attorney in 1990, Doug has led GJP as Executive Director since 1995. During his time as Executive Director, GJP has helped change 21 laws in Georgia that have worked to reduce barriers to reentry for people impacted by the criminal justice system.
Originally from Charleston, West Virginia, Doug earned a bachelor’s degree in History from Davidson College in 1984, and then a law degree from Washington and Lee University in 1989.
Rami recently joined Georgia Justice Project (GJP) as the organization’s first Restorative Justice Program Manager. Rami comes to GJP as an accomplished Restorative Justice practitioner with several years of experience. In his current role, Rami supports GJP in efforts to build Georgia’s first restorative justice program taking referrals of felony cases involving adults, or youth who are tried as adults. The program, Restorative Justice Georgia, is partnering with local District Attorney offices in the Metro Atlanta area.
Before his role at GJP, Rami facilitated juvenile violent crime Restorative Conferences and Victim Offender Dialogues in Colorado and Connecticut. He has also facilitated Restorative Justice processes for adults within the Colorado justice system. Additionally, Rami is the founder of the Restorative Rainbow Alliance, which aims to introduce a LGBTQ+ lens into the field of Restorative Justice by providing extra care for LGBTQ+ victims of hate crimes and assisting facilitators in understanding the extra levels of harm that LGBTQ+ individuals may face. Rami is also the founder of The Space, an LGBTQ+ youth safe space in Colorado that utilizes Restorative Circles to assess the needs of LGBTQ+ youth in the Region.
Originally from Lebanon, Rami received his undergraduate degree in Psychology from the American University of Beirut in 2017, and his Master’s in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of New Haven in 2020.
Georgia Justice Project – Transforming Our Community (gjp.org)
https://www.gatriallawyers.net/
To learn more about the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation, visit fairplay.org
Today on the podcast, Robin and Lester interview Cheryl Legare and Steven Wolfe of Legare, Attwood and Wolfe who focus on employment law.
Guest Bios
Cheryl Legare
Cheryl Legare’s practice focuses on representing employees in all aspects of employment law, including claims of disability discrimination and retaliation, sexual harassment, FMLA interference and retaliation, gender, pregnancy, race, religion, national origin, age discrimination, and wage and hour disputes. She also represents individuals in contract negotiations and employment separation negotiations.
Cheryl is active in the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers, the Atlanta Bar Association, the State Bar of Georgia. She founded GAWL’s Solo/Small Firm Affinity Group and is a past president for GAWL. Cheryl is also a member of the
National Employment Lawyers’ Association and is a past president of the organization’s Georgia chapter. Cheryl is admitted to practice law in Georgia and South Carolina. She is also admitted to the United States District Courts for the Northern and Middle Districts of Georgia, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and Eleventh
Circuits, and the United States Supreme Court. Cheryl lives with her cat Dixie and dogs Luna and Molly in Decatur, Georgia. In her spare time, Cheryl enjoys spending time with friends, listening to live music, and traveling.
Steven Wolfe
Steven has devoted his entire legal career to helping individuals stand up to their employers. He helps people fight for overtime pay that their employers have illegally denied them. He helps people overcome unlawful workplace discrimination, harassment, and retaliation and helps people negotiate severances and new employment contracts. Steve has successfully represented people from all walks of life, from all industries, and on all rungs of the corporate ladder, from entry level to C-level. Steve attended Boston University for undergraduate and then Emory Law School. Steve is married to his wife, Cristiane, who is a corporate attorney, has two sons, Jake and Caleb, and two dogs. Steve loves hiking, photography, and reading history or anything to do with the space program. He is also more than halfway to my goal of hiking in every national park in North America.
Today on the podcast, Robin and Lester interview Mariellen Jacobs, the founder of Rails Against Danger, and the co-founder of the College Safety Coalition, Nanette Hausman. Also joining is Steve Welsh, plaintiff’s counsel in Valdosta State University v. Davis
Mariellen Jacobs is the founder of RAD and co-founder of the College Safety Coalition (CSC). She is also on staff at Shepherd Center where her son was rehabilitated after his accident. A devoted mom of two and a resident of Georgia for 31 years, her passion is to drive for lasting change in institutional bed design and college campus safety data collection.
Nanette Hausman, whose son, Corey, died on the campus of the University of Colorado-Boulder while skateboarding on a dangerous campus street. As a result of Corey’s death, Nanette created College911.net whose purpose is to minimize college students’ deaths and accidents. She is a co-founder of the College Safety Coalition. Nanette is driven to help colleges and injury prevention professionals acquire the data and resources needed to minimize the risk of injury and loss of life. She is equally committed to providing tools to prevent other families from living with the devastating loss she does, every single day.
Mr. Welsh has been practicing law since 1994 and specializes in worker’s compensation, bodily injury, and civil litigation law. He recently secured a 1.4 million dollar verdict for a veteran truck driver in the Superior Court of Laurens County. He has previously served as the Mercer Law Review Writing Editor, the Co-chair of the Georgia Workers Compensation Law Institute (2002), and at the State Board of Workers Compensation Annual Education Seminar as a panelist and speaker in 2008 and as an author and speaker in 1999. Mr. Welsh was also a host speaker at the 2015 State Board of Workers Compensation Annual Regional Seminar.
Mr. Welsh is currently an adjunct professor at the Mercer University School of Law, where he teaches the Workers’ Compensation class. He is an AV Rated attorney, holds several memberships, including the Trial Lawyers Association and American Association for Justice, and has been listed again by Best Lawyers© for 2020.
When not practicing law, Mr. Welsh enjoys playing golf and traveling.
https://www.gatriallawyers.net/
To learn more about the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation, visit fairplay.org
Today on the podcast, Robin and Lester interview Georgia trial attorney Jenny Jensen who specializes in legal malpractice cases and representing lawyers when they have been accused of behaving badly.
Jenny E. Jensen
Ms. Jensen is a principal in The Jensen Firm, whose current practice focuses on attorney ethics, encompassing a Plaintiff’s professional negligence practice, including legal malpractice, representation of both lawyers and clients before the Georgia Bar in disciplinary matters and fee disputes, serving as an expert witness in in the areas of legal malpractice, attorney ethics and attorneys’ fees, as well as a general litigation practice.
Ms. Jensen also serves as a jury consultant and assists other attorneys with witness preparation and jury selection. She was named a “Rising Star” in 2005 and has been named a “Super Lawyer” for 2012-2022. Ms. Jensen was a member of the Georgia Bar Commission on Continuing Lawyer Competency from 2013 through 2018 and served as Chair of the Commission in 2017.
Ms. Jensen was admitted to the Georgia Bar in 1990 and is admitted to practice in all Georgia trial and appellate courts, as well as the United States District Courts for both the Northern and Southern Districts of Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. She received her undergraduate degree, a B.S. Political Science with an
International Studies minor, from Georgia Southern. She is a graduate of the Walter F. George School of Law (J.D.) at Mercer University, where she was a Member of the Moot Court Board and Intrastate Moot Court Team, as well as the Dan J. Bradley Fellow, and recipient of the Class of 1974 Scholarship. Ms. Jensen’s Her practice has focused extensively on civil litigation and appeals in state and federal court. She has been a mock trial coach for over ten years and presently coaches the Duluth High School Mock Trial Team.
Links:
Jenny Jensen LinkedIn
The Jensen Firm Facebook
Home
https://www.gatriallawyers.net/
See You In Court Website
To learn more about the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation, visit fairplay.org
Today on the podcast, Robin and Lester share their thoughts on the question asked at the end of every episode, “What is Justice?”. In addition, to close out the podcast, we share a few clips that exemplify the various types of justice as well as a short compilation of many of our former guest’s definitions of Justice.
Robin Frazer Clark:
Robin Frazer Clark is the owner and founder of the law firm of Robin Frazer Clark, P.C. Ms. Clark has practiced law for thirty years in Atlanta, Georgia, all as a trial lawyer in personal injury cases. Prior to this firm she was a partner in Clark Goldner, P.C. from 2004-2006 and a partner in Jewett and Clark, LLC from 1997-2004. Ms. Clark devotes one-hundred percent of her practice exclusively to representing everyday Americans who have been injured by the carelessness of others. This includes personal injury and employment matters, automobile wrecks, tractor-trailer wrecks, premises safety, elevator and escalator cases, products safety (including defective automobile manufacture), medical malpractice and sexual harassment cases.
Ms. Clark was recently invited and inducted into the International Society of Barristers. She is a Past President of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association (GTLA) and previously served as President-Elect, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Parliamentarian and Education Committee Co-Chair of GTLA. She served on the Editorial Board of The Verdict and was elected to membership in the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). Ms. Clark was also on the Board of Governors for the State Bar of Georgia for Atlanta Circuit Post No. 36. She is a Past President of the State Bar of Georgia and a member of the Atlanta Bar Association, in which she is a Past Chair of the Litigation Section. She is a Member of the General Practice and Trial Section of the State Bar of Georgia. She is also a member of the American Association for Justice (formerly, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America) and a member of the Executive Committee of The Lawyers Club of Atlanta. Ms. Clark is a Fellow of The Lawyers Foundation of Georgia.
Lester Tate is a trial lawyer who served as the 48th President of the State Bar of Georgia. Since 1996, he has practiced as a member of Akin & Tate, Georgia’s oldest continuing law firm. He has spent his entire professional career as a courtroom lawyer, having tried over one-hundred civil and criminal cases to verdict and appeared over thirty times in state and federal appellate courts.
He currently serves as National Treasurer of the American Board of Trial Advocates and a member of the Executive Committee. He is the past President of the Southeastern Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates (SEABOTA) and is a member of the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates.
Lester is a Fellow in the International Society of Barristers, an invitation-only trial lawyer honorary society, whose members are rigorously screened by trial lawyers and judges to determine the member’s ability, experience, accomplishments and ethical standards.
He is Senior Fellow of Litigation Counsel of America, a trial lawyer honorary society comprised of less than 1% of American lawyers, and, because of his extensive courtroom experience, he holds the rank of “Advocate” in the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA).
While devoting most of his time to wrongful death and serious personal injury cases, where he has a number of million and multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements, Lester’s practice includes many diverse matters. He has successfully defended individuals charged with a broad array of state and federal crimes at trial, ranging from murder to conspiracy. He has also handled a wide variety of complex commercial and political cases involving issues as varied as shareholder rights and ballot access.
Today on the podcast, Robin and Lester interview Ray Persons, Senior Litigation Partner at King and Spalding and President of the International Society of Barristers.
Ray Persons:
W. Ray Persons is a senior litigation partner at King & Spalding, an international law firm that represents a broad array of clients, including half of the Fortune Global 100, with 900 lawyers in 23 offices in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Ray has a national practice focused on product liability, mass tort, class action and complex litigation.
Ray has represented more than 50 of the Fortune 500 as counsel or national coordinating counsel for clients in the pharmaceutical, automotive, chemical and energy industries; he has served as lead counsel in 92 jury trials, 90 percent of which went to verdict. He has served as lead counsel in over 25 Engle progeny tobacco jury trials. He serves as national counsel in In re UST Litigation for one of the world’s largest petroleum companies in claims brought by dozens of states alleging fraudulent overpayment of claims for reimbursement of costs associated with cleanup of underground storage tanks. He served as national coordinating counsel and lead trial counsel for Union Carbide Corporation in the successful defense against claims of an alleged industry-wide conspiracy to subject workers to cancer-causing chemicals. He represented one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies in a 442-plaintiff case involving claims of exposure to arsenic and chromium stemming from the 60- year operation of a manufacturing facility in New Jersey. Ray successfully defended against claims brought by 1,200 homeowners and residents who lived in the vicinity of a fertilizer plant; the chemicals of concern were arsenic, lead, mercury and sulfur dioxide.
Ray is regarded as one of the best trial lawyers in the country, as evidenced by his election as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the International Society of Barristers and the Litigation Counsel of America. He holds the rank of Advocate in the American Board of Trial Advocates. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America in four categories: Commercial Litigation, Bet-the-Company Litigation, Mass Torts, and Product Liability; Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business; Lawdragon 500; The Legal 500; Georgia Trend magazine’s “Legal Elite,” and Atlanta Magazine’s Georgia Super Lawyers (Top 10 for eight consecutive years). He is a member of the Defense Research Institute, Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel, International Association of Defense Counsel, and American Health Lawyers Association.
Ray received his undergraduate degree in 1975 from Armstrong State College and his law degree in 1978 from The Ohio State University. He was awarded the Armstrong State University Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2000, the Moritz College of Law 2005 Distinguished Alumnus Award, The Ohio State University 2006 Distinguished Service Award, and The Ohio State University 2012 John B. Gerlach, Sr., Development Volunteer Award.
Read Full Bio
Links:
King and Spaulding
International Society of Barristers
Home
See You In Court Website
To learn more about the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation, visit fairplay.org
Today on the podcast, Robin and Lester interview writer and Senior Editor of POLITICO, Peter Canellos. We are so excited to discuss Peter’s new book, The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero.
Peter Canellos:
Peter S. Canellos is managing editor for enterprise at POLITICO, overseeing the site’s magazine, investigative journalism, and major projects. He has also been POLITICO’s executive editor, overseeing the newsroom during the 2016 presidential coverage, and the editorial page editor of The Boston Globe.
A native of Boston, Peter is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Law School. He spent most of his career at the Globe, where at various points he oversaw the paper’s local news coverage and Washington, D.C., bureau. As the Globe’s editorial page editor, he authored numerous editorials urging Bostonians to overcome their parochial divisions and embrace their status as a world-class city.
He also edited the Globe’s book, “Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy,” which was a top-10 New York Times bestseller in 2009. The book also set the stage for much of the analysis of Kennedy’s career following his death from cancer and supplied most of the anecdotes for President Barack Obama’s eulogy of Kennedy.
For the past 12 years, Peter has worked with the International Women’s Media Foundation overseeing the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship, given to a woman journalist from around the world to study human rights at MIT and intern at the Globe and New York Times. He has also traveled overseas on human rights trips with the US Holocaust Museum, International Reporting Project, and Robert Bosch Foundation, among other groups.
Peter considers the many young journalists he’s hired and mentored over the years to be his greatest accomplishment. As an editor, he has overseen two Pulitzer Prize-winning projects along with five others that were Pulitzer finalists, among many other awards. As a writer, he was a recipient of the American Society of Newspaper Editors award in 2011 for excellence in editorial writing.
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Links:
Peter Canellos’ Website
The Great Dissenter
POLITICO
Home
https://www.gatriallawyers.net/
See You In Court Website
To learn more about the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation, visit fairplay.org
Today we are discussing The Georgia Court of Appeals and appellate law. To help us understand what that is and what that means, we are joined by the Presiding Judge of the Georgia Court of Appeals, the Hon. Anne Elizabeth Barnes.
Judge Anne Elizabeth Barnes:
Presiding Judge Anne Elizabeth Barnes was elected in 1998 to the Georgia Court of Appeals in a three-way race without a runoff. She was the first woman to be elected in a state-wide judicial race without having been first appointed to the bench. Judge Barnes was re-elected to a second term in 2004, elected to a third term in 2010, receiving more votes than any other candidate in the State of Georgia, then again re-elected in 2016. Currently, she is running for re-election in 2022.
A native Georgian, Judge Barnes grew up in Chamblee and attended DeKalb County public schools. She graduated magna cum laude from Georgia State University in 1979. Judge Barnes has earned three law degrees: a Juris Doctor from the University of Georgia, a Master of Laws in the Judicial Process from the University of Virginia, and a Master of Laws in Judicial Studies from Duke University.
Judge Barnes was elected by her fellow judges as the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals from 2006 to 2008. She has also served on many committees and commissions, including the Judicial Council of Georgia’s Standing Committee on Policy, the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, the Supreme Court Commission on Interpreters, the Domestic Violence Committee of the Judicial Council of Georgia, and the Georgia Commission on Child Support. Judge Barnes is a Trustee of the Georgia Legal History Foundation, and served as a director on the Boards of Georgia Court Appointed Special Advocates (GACASA), the Truancy Intervention Project, and the National Courts and Science Institute. She also served on the Judicial Education Program Advisory Board of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies.
Presiding Judge Barnes is a 2006 graduate of Leadership Atlanta. She is a member of the American, Atlanta, DeKalb, and Gate City Bar Associations, the Lawyers Club of Atlanta, and the Old Warhorse Lawyers Club. She is a Master of the Bleckley Inn of Court and a member and former District 5 Director of the National Association of Women Judges. Judge Barnes is a Fellow of both the Lawyers Foundation of Georgia and the American Bar Association.
In 2012, Judge Barnes received the Romae Turner Powell Judicial Service Award from the Atlanta Bar Association Judicial Section, which she formerly chaired. Judge Barnes has been recognized for her service by the DeKalb Bar Association, the Women in the Profession Committee of the Atlanta Bar Association, the Young Lawyers Division of the State Bar of Georgia, and Justice Served. She has been twice recognized by the Barbados Association of Atlanta, receiving their Trident and Community Service Awards.
Judge Barnes and her husband, Dr. Thomas I. Banks, a Distinguished Professor of Physics at Rutgers University, live in Virginia Highlands with their dog, Tiger.
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Links:
Judge Barnes’ Website
Court of Appeals of the State of GA
Home
See You In Court Website
To learn more about the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation, visit fairplay.org
Today we are delighted to have Chris Joyner on the podcast. He is a journalist with the Atlanta Journal Constitution and is the author of The Three Death Sentences of Clarence Henderson and we are looking forward to diving into the book and a sordid period of Georgia history with Chris today on the podcast.
Chris Joyner:
Chris Joyner is an investigative reporter with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution with more than two decades of experience in journalism, ranging from community newspapers to national and international news and wire services. He reported from the scene of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010. As an investigative reporter, he focuses on uncovering hidden communities and has written about street gangs and life inside a supermax prison, the hidden world of government lobbying, and a white-collar criminal network built around a drug testing lab. He lives in Atlanta.
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Links:
Chris’ LinkedIn
Atlanta Journal Constitution
The Three Death Sentences of Clarence Henderson
Home
See You In Court Website
To learn more about the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation, visit fairplay.org