Articles Posted in Legal Profession

In a unanimous opinion, the Georgia Supreme Court held Monday that legal malpractice claims may be assigned to other parties in some circumstances, the scope of which remains unclear. Villanueva vs. First American Title Insurance arose out of a highly unusual real estate closing. A senior attorney hired an associate to work on closings but…

This month’s issue of the Georgia Bar Journal includes my swan song (“End of Year Report”) which I delivered June 1, 2012, at the plenary session of the State Bar annual meeting in Savannah. For those who need somnolent bedtime reading, here is the text as edited and published End of Year Report Kenneth L.…

I am happy to congratulate three new members of the Georgia Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, who were recently appointed by Governor Nathan Deal. The promotion of Justice Blackwell to the Supreme Court and the retirement of Judge Charles Mikell created two vacancies on the Court of Appeals, for which Governor Deal made his…

In the past 10 days this plaintiffs’ trial lawyer, in the capacity of State Bar of Georgia president, has co-presided over a joint meeting of the State Bar Executive Committee and the Georgia Supreme Court, had a joint press conference with the Attorney General of Georgia and spoke at a lunch meeting that included general…

On a local news broadcast tonight, I heard a story about someone filing a “ten million dollar lawsuit.” Four points: Would you really want to be represented by a lawyer who cares so little about professionalism and ethics as to blatantly violate these standards of conduct to get a cheap headline? ————-   Ken Shigley…

The following article appeared in the February 2012 issue of the Georgia Bar Journal. A third of a century trekking between Georgia courts, first in a single rural circuit and then more or less statewide, has made me a minor connoisseur of courthouses, the most visible physical infrastructure of the judicial system. I have tried…

The State Bar of Georgia communications staff will distribute the following article to all Georgia newspapers this week: Tough on Crime, Smart on Crime By Kenneth L. Shigley My first job after law school was as a prosecutor in a rural judicial circuit. Soon after joining the district attorney’s office, I assisted in a death…

A year goes by awfully fast when you’re working two full-time jobs. With only 81 days remaining in my term as State Bar president, I look forward to the ability to just focus on my clients and my law practice.  For now, however, I find myself working late into the night to catch up on…

In my commercial trucking accidents law practice, we often need to subpoena business and medical records from other states, especially in interstate trucking personal injury and wrongful death litigation. In cases filed in state courts of Georgia, rather than federal courts, it has been necessary to comply with an arcane variety of differing state laws…

(The following President’s column appeared in the December 2011 issue of the Georgia Bar Journal.) My first job after law school was as an assistant district attorney in the small town where I had graduated from high school. I was 26 but in blue jeans rather than a suit could have passed for a decade…