Kenneth L. Shigley, Sr., of Atlanta, Georgia, has been named one of America’s Top 100 Personal Injury Attorneys ® for 2020.

Selection to America’s Top 100 Personal Injury Attorneys® is by invitation only and is reserved to identity the nation’s most exceptional litigators for high-value personal injury, catastrophic injury, wrongful death, product liability, and medical malpractice matters.
To be considered for selection, an attorney must focus more than 50% of their active legal practice on personal injury, catastrophic injury, wrongful death, product liability, and/or medical malpractice matters. These minimum qualifications are required for initial consideration. Thereafter, candidates are carefully screened through Advanced Data Analytics evaluating a broad array of criteria, including the candidate’s professional experience, litigation experience, significant personal injury settlements and/or verdicts, peer reputation, and community impact in order to rank the candidates throughout the state.

Only the top 100 qualifying attorneys in each state will receive this honor and be selected for membership among America’s Top 100 Personal Injury Attorneys®. With these extremely high standards for selection to America’s Top 100 Personal Injury Attorneys®, less than one-half percent (0.5%) of active attorneys in the United States will receive this honor — truly the most exclusive and elite level of attorneys in the community.

Mr. Shigley’s qualifications include:

• President, State Bar of Georgia, 2011-12
• Tradition of Excellence Award for lifetime achievement, 2019
• First Georgia lawyer to earn three board certifications from National Board of Trial Advocacy (Truck Accident Law, Civil Trial Practice, Civil Pretrial Practice)
• Chair, American Association for Justice Motor Vehicle Collision, Highway & Premises Liability Section, 2015-16
• Lead Author, Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation & Practice
• Chair, Institute for Continuing Legal Education in Georgia, 2012-13
• Georgia “Super Lawyer” (since 2004)
• “AV Preeminent” rating in Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory (since 1989)
• Avvo 10.0 out of 10.0

See representative verdicts and settlements.

On a warm October afternoon two years ago, wearing one of the yarmulkes that Jewish funeral directors provide for non-Jewish attendees, I helped shovel red Georgia dirt into the open grave of an old client and friend. As I did so, I pondered the unanswered question whether long-term side effects of her food poisoning a quarter century earlier had contributed to her death after years of internal organ illnesses.

A recent decision of the Georgia Supreme Court on what is required to get a food poisoning case to a jury brought that grim saga back to mind.

In Patterson v. Kevon, 2018 WL 3965745, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously ruled on .August 20, 2018 that circumstantial evidence was sufficient to allow a jury trial on a suit against a caterer for alleged food poisoning of guests. In doing so, the Supreme Court overturned a line of Court of Appeals authority that classified food poisoning cases as “a unique species of negligence cases” imposing a heavier burden upon the plaintiff to show proximate cause than that generally required of nonmovants on summary judgment.

Briefly summarized, the Pattersons became ill after eating food at a wedding rehearsal dinner prepared, catered, and served by Big Kev’s Barbeque. They sued for negligence, violation of the Georgia Food Act (OCGA § 26-2-20 et seq.), and products liability, alleging that the food at the dinner was defective, pathogen-contaminated, undercooked, and negligently prepared.

The caterer moved for summary judgment, showing that the Pattersons also consumed items prepared by others at the rehearsal dinner, such as dessert or alcohol, as well as improperly stored leftovers from the rehearsal dinner and food at the wedding reception the following day. In addition, the caterer showed that the Pattersons ate other meals, including fast food, and drove to Florida before Mr. Patterson began to feel ill, three days after the rehearsal dinner, and that Mrs. Patterson did not begin to feel ill until several days later. In addition, the caterer asserted that the owners of the event venue, their employees, and other guests who consumed the food did not become ill.

On the other hand, the Pattersons presented evidence that several people became ill with similar symptoms after eating the caterer’s food at the rehearsal dinner. Both Mr. Patterson and a guest at the rehearsal dinner who thecaterer’s  meal but did not consume food at the wedding reception, both tested positive for salmonella. Three other guests testified that they became ill at around the same time after eating at the rehearsal dinner. Four other people who became ill, including Mrs. Patterson, did not eat at the wedding reception, and other guests who became ill testified that they did not consume dessert, drinks, or leftovers. As many as 16 to 20 people became ill after the dinner.

The trial court granted summary judgment and the Court of Appeals affirmed 5-4, holding:

suits alleging illness from food poisoning that are based entirely on circumstantial evidence are a unique species of negligence cases, and our prior decisions have required plaintiffs in this context to bring forth evidence demonstrating that the only reasonable hypothesis for why they became ill was due to acts or omissions of the defendant, to the exclusion of all other reasonable theories. This special element prevents a plaintiff from recovering solely on the basis of speculation and conjecture and requires plaintiffs to engage in a rigorous examination of all reasonable theories of contamination. This standard also shields defendants from what, in some cases, may amount to fallacious post hoc, ergo propter hoc arguments that advance the plaintiff’s theory of contamination. In so doing, this rule reserves to the jury only those cases in which evidence brought forth by the plaintiff establishes a clear and direct link between the defendant’s food and the plaintiff’s injuries.

Two vigorous dissents, by Judges Doyle and McFadden, detailed the Pattersons’ evidence and pointed out that the standard established by the majority was more appropriate for the burden of proof at trial rather than on motion for summary judgment.

The Supreme Court in an opinion authored by Justice Michael Boggs unanimously rejected any requirement to exclude every other reasonable hypothesis, noting that the Court of Appeals majority opinion conflated summary judgments cases with decisions on appeals after jury verdicts. These cases are highly fact specific. In most cases, either for plaintiffs or defendants, have turned upon the availability or unavailability of expert testimony evidence about presence or absence of pathogens. In this case, the caterer failed to counter the plaintiffs’ evidence of proximate cause.

This decision removes an anomaly the consideration of summary judgement motions on food poisoning cases in Georgia. However, the plaintiff still must prove causation. As a practical matter, “jury proof” still requires a preponderance of evidence that excludes other reasonable hypotheses of cause. In evaluating a claim of food poisoning, I want lab tests to prove what pathogen caused an illness, probability that it was related to the food consumed, evidence that people who ate the same food got sick and companions who did not eat the same food did not get sick, and some way to minimize other explanations of illness.

In that food poisoning case that I handled years ago, three coworkers at a bank went to dinner together. Two had fried chicken while the third ate something else. Two fell ill with similar symptoms. One of them was hospitalized and tests of stool samples showed the presence of Campylobacter which is common in uncooked poultry. Consumption of undercooked poultry can easily cause gastic infection within 2 to 5 days.

My client recovered from the acute gastric illness and we settled her case for what we felt was a good amount. But we stayed in touch over the subsequent years. Long-term complications of Campylobacter food poisoning infections are rare. But this lady developed complex long-term problems with internal organs which led to her death about 25 years after her food poisoning. No doctors could directly relate her lethal illness to the food poisoning, but as I took my turn tossing a shovel of dirt into her grave, I wondered if a supper of undercooked chicken contributed to her death a so many years  later.

If I handle food poisoning cases in the future, I will be sure to explore with physicians and experts the risks of long-term health consequences long after the initial acute illness has resolved.

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.Ken Shigley is a past president of the State Bar of Georgia, past chair of the State Bar’s Tort & Insurance Practice Section, past chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute, past chair of the American Association for Justice Motor Vehicle Collision, Highway & Premises Liability Section, and a member of the board of governors of the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys. He is lead author of Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation & Practice (Thomson Reuters West, 2010-2018). His law practice is focused on catastrophic injury and wrongful death including those arising from commercial trucking accidents and those involving brain, neck, back, spinal cord, amputation and burn injuries. He is licensed to practice law in Georgia. Representation of clients in others states, which possible, can be undertaken only in strict compliance with the multijurisdictional practice and pro hac vice rules of the other state.

The one time I met the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, he talked about how much he loved hunting quail. It is good that he was able to spend his last day in this mortal realm on a quail hunt.

Back in 2012, when I was president of the State Bar of Georgia, Justice Scalia spoke at a dinner I attended at the World War II museum in New Orleans, along with Buck Ruffin who was then unopposed to become president-elect of the Georgia Bar, and our wives. David Gambrell, a former Georgia Bar president and U.S. Senator, was receiving a lifetime achievement award at that dinner. Justice Scalia gave an inspirational speech about the Constitution, which he sought to interpret according to the original meaning of the words of the text rather than as some sort of free floating Rorschach ink blot test.  I later borrowed liberally from Justice Scalia’s remarks in a president’s column in the Georgia Bar Journal.

After the dinner, Buck Ruffin and I buttonholed Justice Scalia. I told him how much I had enjoyed his point-counterpoint appearance with Justice Stephen Breyer at a South Carolina Bar meeting in Columbia a few months earlier, and that we would love to schedule a reprise of that in Georgia. He smiled and said, “I’ve always enjoyed hunting quail in Georgia.” Buck began then planning a 2014 Symposium on the Constitution in Atlanta featuring Justice Scalia, followed by a bird hunting trip on a plantation in south Georgia. Georgia Supreme Court Justice David Nahmias, who clerked for Justice Scalia, was helpful in scheduling that. Several of the State Bar officers who were in office at that time participated in bird hunt with Justice Scalia, but by then I was out of office and not included.

In a more decent time, folks might have refrained from media comments about a Supreme Court justice’s successor until after the funeral. I’m not so naive as to think there would not have been jockeying behind the scenes, but public decorum might have delayed the public debate while the family had its time of grieving. Unfortunately, we do not live in that era. Within hours after the news of Justice Scalia’s passing, the media were buzzing with speculation and it was a topic in a televised presidential debate. Senator Cruz immediately vowed to filibuster against any nominee, no matter who it might be.

The Constitution of the United States, which Justice Scalia interpreted according to the original meaning of the text, provides at Article II, Section II:

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls,  Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

President Obama should fulfill his constitutional duty to nominate someone to fill this vacancy on the Supreme Court. He should choose someone who would have been confirmed on arrival in less stridently partisan times.  Then the Senate should fulfill its constitutional duty to “advise and consent.” It should at least holding hearings and consider the nomination on its merits rather than on a purely partisan basis. Senator Cruz’s vow to filibuster against any nominee before he even knows who it will be was, to put it mildly, intemperate and unworthy of anyone who aspires to become President of the United States.

Since there is no one currently on the court who has experience in elective office, there is something to be said for appointing someone with experience in the political rough and tumble. Since there is no one on the court who has ever spent any substantial time representing individuals who bleed when they are cut, that might be a consideration as well. There is no religious test for office, but since there are currently no Protestants on the Supreme Court in a country with a Protestant plurality, there is something to be said for appointing a Protestant.

Short lists of federal circuit judges are floating in the media, including

• Sri Srinivasan (48, DC Circuit, former deputy solicitor general, Stanford JD/MBA, Indian immigrant, Hindu, confirmed by the Senate three years ago, 97-0, when Senator Cruz called him a “longtime friend”).
• Merrick Garland (63, chief judge of DC Circuit, Harvard Law, Jewish, confirmed 76-23 in 1997, viewed as a compromise pick).
• Patricia Ann Millett (52, DC Circuit, Harvard Law, wife of Navy reserve officer, former assistant solicitor general, Methodist, confirmed 55-38 in 2013).
• Paul Watford (49, 9^th Circuit, African American, UCLA Law, confirmed by 61-34 vote in 2012).
• Jane Louise Kelly (51, 8th Circuit, Duke, Harvard Law, former public defender in Iowa, confirmed 96-0 in 2013).

Hometown favorites for me  in Atlanta would be:

• Jill Pryor (52, 11^th Circuit, Yale Law, 26 years in private practice representing both plaintiffs and defendants, confirmed 97-0 in 2014 as part of a package deal to fill six federal judgeships in Georgia).
• Julie Carnes (65, 11^th Circuit, former Assistant U. S. Attorney and district judge, UGA Law, Fulton County State Court building is named after her father, confirmed 94-0 in 2014 as part of the same package deal).
• Georgia Supreme Court Justice David Nahmias, who was on Harvard Law Review with President Obama, clerked for Justice Scalia and served in U.S. Department of Justice and as U.S. Attorney under President George W. Bush, might be a prospect under a Republican president.
• Justice Scalia rightly criticized the composition of the Supreme Court as a “select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine,” all educated at Harvard or Yale law schools, with four of nine hailing from New York City. It would be healthy to look to the midwest or south and for candidates who are outside the mold of “tall building lawyers.”

Thinking outside the box of usual SCOTUS picks, the President might consider senators of his party who get along fairly well with Senate Republicans colleagues. That list might include:

• Chris Coons (52, Delaware, Judiciary Committee member, grad of Amherst, Yale Law, Yale Divinity, Presbyterian, former county executive).
• Cory Booker (38, New Jersey, Rhodes Scholar, Stanford and Yale grad, former mayor of Newark, African American Baptist, worked with Republican co-sponsors on criminal justice reform bill).
• Amy Klobuchar (55, Minnesota, Yale & Chicago Law, former prosecutor,  Congregationalist).
• Sheldon Whitehouse (60, Rhode Island, Yale and Virginia Law School, former US Attorney and state attorney general, Judiciary Committee member, Episcopalian).

Governors of the president’s party  who might be considered could include:

• Jay Nixon (60, Missouri, former state attorney general, University of Missouri Law School, Methodist, real world experience practicing in his hometown and in state senate before election as attorney general).
• Steve Bullock (49, Montana, former state attorney general, Columbia University Law School, some time in hometown private practice, United Church of Christ).
• Maggie Hassan (57, NH, background in private practice and as hospital counsel, Brown & Northeastern Law School, United Church of Christ, now running against an incumbent Republican Senator, which could make her a wild card pick because Republicans might want her out of that race).

Presidents usually prefer to appoint Supreme Court justices who are roughly 50 or younger. (I have some personal experience at the state level with “aging out of consideration” for a judicial appointment.) Politically, it might be prudent to select someone who has not been the subject of a bitter partisan confirmation battle in the past.  By that standard, the list might be narrowed to Judges Srinivasan, Kelly and Pryor, Senators Coons, Klobuchar and Booker,  Governor Bullock, and perhaps others.

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Ken Shigley is a past president of the State Bar of Georgia and board-certified trial attorney in Atlanta

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 people do not realize that breaches of medical data privacy can be just as expensive as a financial date breach and may involve other very serioius consequences.

• to combine a patient number with a false provider number and file false claims with insurers
• to fraudulently obtain medical services at your expense
• to obtain fraudulent prescriptions for sale on the black market
• to obtain medical services with the beneficiary’s consent. A substantial portion of identity theft is consensual between friends and family, although this may wane as more people acquire insurance under the Affordable Health Care Act.

So far, you might again shrug and wonder what real harm that might cause you. But there are other potential consequences of medical ID theft that hit closer to home:

• for fraudulent withdrawal of your bank account funds or fraudulent use of your credit card use
• denial of your medical insurance benefits because aggregate policy limits were exhausted by fraudulent use
• denial of or increased premiums for your life or disability insurance based on inaccurate medical history
• improper medical treatment to you based on inaccurate medical records
• billings to you for a fraudulent medical bill
• denial of employment to you if a background search discloses a disqualifying medical condition for a job, such as commercial truck driving

Individuals are not the only ones at risks. Doctors, hospitals and clinic can  have their medical provider identifiers stolen too.  The most common approaches are:

• Thieves use a physician’s medical identifier to make it appear that the provider ordered health services
• Thieves use physician’s medical identifier to make it appear that a physician provided and billed services directly even though the physician never saw the patients.  That can result in the IRS pursuing the physician for not paying taxes on income the provider is falsely recorded as having received.

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Ken Shigley is an Atlanta trial attorney focused on serious personal injury and wrongful death cases. He is currently chair of the American Association for Justice Motor Vehicle Collision, Highway & Premises Liability Section. Previously he served as president of the State Bar of Georgia and chair of the board of trustees of the Institute for Continuing Legal Education in Georgia. He is lead author of Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation and Practice and a board certified civil trial attorney of the National Board of Trial Advocacy.

While I can enjoy hanging out at the pool on a summer day as much as anyone, I can’t help thinking of the families I have helped after tragic swimming pools injuries.

The saddest story in my experience was the near drowning of a beautiful 19-month-old girl on a soft April afternoon in Atlanta.  While her mom was breast feeding a newborn sibling on the sheltered patio of their condo, the toddler quietly slipped away. Mom frantically searched in one direction, guessing that the child had gone toward a playmate’s home.

But the child toddled in the opposite direction, toward the condominium pool that had not yet opened for the season. Even at 19 months, she was able to reach and open the substandard latch on the “locked” pool gate. She fell in the uncovered pool, apparently reaching for a floating ball that may have been there all winter. A maintenance man later testified he had told the complex manager for months they needed to replace the latch with a child proof model.

Demonstrating how anoxia(oxygen deprivation) in a near drowning brain injury can be worse than death, she had catastrophic brain damage.  She had a feeding tube for the years she survived, her limbs drew up in contractures and although her beautiful blue eyes tracked people around the room, her neurologist swore that there was no cognitive activity in her brain. It was as if the lights were on but nobody was home.

No amount of money could heal her but we were able to win enough to provide for the 24/7 skilled home nursing care she required. And to some degree the case may have helped to raise the consciousness of property managers and insurers about the need for proper pool enclosures, preventing tragedies for other children.

That experience led me to leave a firm where I mostly defended cases for insurance companies and pursue my calling representing individuals and families.

Drowning ranks fifth among the leading causes of unintentional injury death in the United States. Every day, about ten people die from unintentional drowning. Of these, two are children aged 14 or younger. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reports that each year nearly 300 children under the age of five drown in a pool or spa and another 5,100 children under the age of 15 go to hospital emergency rooms for near-drowning injuries. Children between the ages of 1 and 3 and African American children between the ages of 5 and 19 are most at risk of drowning.  More than 200 young children drown in backyard swimming pools each year.

To help prevent these tragic deaths while at the pool this summer, people need to be aware of their surroundings. They also need to make sure there are proper safety precautions taken before setting foot inside a pool setting.

The CPSC’s “Pool Safely” Week begins July 28, 2013. Pool Safely Week is an opportunity for water parks, municipal swimming pools and other indoor or outdoor aquatic facilities to demonstrate their support of the national campaign and the life-saving message that “simple steps save lives.” By participating in Pool Safely Week 2013, communities – including subdivisions with neighborhood pools – may help reinforce the message that pool and spa safety is important all the time, but especially in summer when so many families spend time at swimming pools. 

 Here are  nine tips to help keep everyone safe at the pool this season:

 1.      Maintain an effective fence and gate enclosure around any swimming pool to prevent young children from wandering in without adult supervision.

 o       The fence must be at least four feet high, with no openings larger than four inches.

o       The gate must be self-closing and self-latching.

o       The latch on the gate must require one to reach over the gate and lift up, so that small children cannot open it.

o       All chairs, tables, large toys or other objects that would allow a child to climb up to reach the gate latch or enable the child to climb over the isolation fence should be removed or kept inside the fenced area.  

o       If your house serves as a fourth side of a fence around a pool, install and religiously use door alarms and install window guards on windows facing pools or spas.

o       Install pool and gate alarms to alert you when children manage to get past the first line of defense. Consider using a surface wave or underwater alarm.

 2.      Teach all children to swim  by age four.

 o       When my children were about that age, we sent them to a swimming teacher who had a great reputation for teaching young children the basics of swimming.  

o       Helicopter parents were banned from the pool while the swim teacher endured the tykes’ screams and tears. We took both of our kids to him and they came back ready to start daily practices with the neighborhood pool swim team.

3.      Make sure a responsible adult trained in CPR and first aid, or a lifeguard, or is present and attentive at all times when children are in the pool area.

o       If you have a home pool,  take Red Cross water safety, CPR and first aid courses.

o       If your neighborhood operates a pool, push to hire a qualified lifeguard if possible. 

o       Issue the adult supervisor an item such as a whistle, bracelet, etc. to reinforce which adult is in charge of the safety of the children.

4.      Remember that a person who is drowning will not look like the dramatic “drowning”you see in TV and movies.

o       More often, drowning victims are not flailing away and waving their arms around because instinct actually drives them to push themselves upward by moving their arms lateral and downward.

5.      Maintain constant, undistracted visual supervision of young children in and around the swimming pool.

o       Never leave a young child unattended in or near water but stay in arm’s reach of very young kids. Do not trust a child’s life to another child or even an unreliable, distracted adult. A child can drown in the time it takes to answer a cell phone call or respond to a text message.

o       Remove small children from the swimming pool for any distraction such as a telephone call, use of restroom, etc.

o       Make sure children who have not learned to swim wear a US Coast Guard-approved personal flotation device. 

Floaties, rafts and inflatable toys should never be substituted for adult supervision. 

o       Teach young children to ask permission before going near water and enforce that rule with meaningful discipline.

o       If a child is missing, check the water first– every second counts!

6.      Establish and enforce clear pool safety rules,such as

o       No diving

o       No swimming alone

o       No running in pool area

o       No riding toys or electronic devices near pool

o       Stay away from drains

o       Don’t just post the rules where easily ignored. Reinforce their importance and impose meaningful consequences for breaking the rules.

7.      Make sure your pool and spa drains, drain covers and pool and spa covers comply with federal safety requirements.

o       Older drains with uncontrolled suction posed a risk of drowning or disemboweling a child. Since 2007, federal law has to require anti-entrapment drain covers and other safety devices, as needed.

o       Under the law, all public pools and spas must have ANSI/ASME A112.19.8 performance standard, or the successor standard ANSI/APSP-16 2011 compliant drain covers installed and a second anti-entrapment system installed, when there is a single main drain other than an unblockable drain.

o       Maintain pool and spa covers in good working order.

o       If you do not know what kind of drains, drain covers and pool covers you have, ask your pool service provider whether yours meet these standards.

8.      Be prepared for emergencies. 

o       Make sure everyone in the home knows how to respond to water emergencies by having an emergency plan in place with your children  

o       Have appropriate equipment, such as reaching or throwing equipment, a cell phone, life jackets and a first aid kit, within a reach at poolside, not inside the house.

o       Make sure even very young children know how and when to call 911.

9.      Remember pool hygiene as well as safety.

o       Keep your pool clean and clear by maintaining proper chemical levels, circulation and filtration. I represented a child in a near drowning in which an apartment pool was so murky that emergency personnel had trouble finding a black child on the white bottom of the pool.

o       By keeping a pool clean and hygienic, you can see what is happening in the pool and minimize risks of earaches, rashes or diseases.

o             Protect your skin. Limit the amount of direct sunlight you receive between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. and wear a carefully chosen sunscreen.

o       Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of water regularly, even if you’re not thirsty. Avoid drinks with alcohol or caffeine

May you and your children reach the end of the summer swimming pool season as you began it, safe and healthy, though more tan and fit.

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Ken Shigley is past president of the State Bar of Georgia (2011-12), double board certified in Civil Trial Advocacy and Civil Pretrial Advocacy by the National Board of Legal Specialty Certification, and lead author of Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation and Practice.  His Atlanta-based civil trial practice is focused on representation of plaintiffs in cases of castastrophic personal injury and wrongful death.

• Ashley Lane – senior paralegal, office manager, COO and CFO. Ashley earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia (go Dawgs!) and Master of Business Administration at Mercer University. For the past nine years she has been a senior paralegal at the Atlanta office of Butler, Wooten & Fryhofer, where she assisted in litigation of complex products liability cases. A metro Atlanta native, she is married to a Certified Public Accountant and has a two year old son. I spent six months on recruiting and went through about 350 applicants before finding Ashley through old fashioned networking.
• Carolyn Johnston – administrative, marketing and legal assistant and “Chief Creative Officer.” Carolyn is a communications graduate of Georgia Southern University where she developed an impressive portfolio of work. She will assist in administrative, legal and communications matters, including management of websites, blogs, newsletters, etc. I chose Carolyn from a field of nearly 100 who responded to an online ad.

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Ken Shigley is past president of the State Bar of Georgia (2011-12), past chair of the Institute for Continuing Legal Education in Georgia board of trustees (2012-13), board certified civil trial and pretrial advocate (National Board of Legal Specialty Certification) lead author of Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation & Practice (2010-13). His Atlanta-based practice focuses on cases of wrongful death and catastrophic personal injury, including brain injury and spinal cord injury.

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 case files, juggling a very complicated schedule and returning calls from the road at odd hours and a little slowly.

I believe all the networking in the bar presidency will strengthen my work for clients after my term is finished.  While no one can or should expect the least bit of favoritism in the judicial system, the insights gained through the bar presidency will be absolutely invaluable.

Last month in New Orleans for the National Conference of Bar Presidents, I saw a street entertainer juggling machetes on Royal Street. Dropping a buck in his bucket, I told him his act was a metaphor more my life this year.

A lot of my work with the State Bar is behind the scenes, serving as the WD-40 in relations between groups in the bar and the three branches of government. My old tricks as a mediator in years past occasionally prove useful in dealing with players that have trouble talking productively with each other.

Excluding a tremendous amount of office work, phone conferences, writing articles, etc., here are a few of the things since January 1 that I can mention in public:

• Jan. 3 & 4. Attended several fundraisers for legislators.
• Jan. 5. Judicial Council meeting all afternoon.
• Jan. 6. 9 AM, video deposition of a doctor at Emory for a case on trial calendar; 11 AM, attend swearing in of my friend Judge Mike Boggs on Georgia Court of Appeals; 12 PM, meeting of Next Generation Courts Commission which I appointed; 4 PM, settled case that was on trial calendar the following Monday for exact amount that had been my target for a year.
• Jan. 7. Presided over State Bar Board of Governors meeting in morning. Attended Young Lawyers Division black tie party in evening at Capitol City Club.
• Jan. 10. Supreme Court hearing in morning, meeting with Governor’s executive counsel in afternoon.
• Jan. 11. Photo sessions with all lawyer legislators at state capitol in morning for cover of Georgia Bar Journal. Meeting in afternoon with Superior Court Clerks, Administrative Office of Courts staff and Supreme Court justice re: creation of electronic court filing system.
• Jan. 12. 11 AM, attend meeting of Georgia Dispute Resolution Commission by phone (hands free, just listening) en route to another meeting. Noon, speak at Sandy Springs Bar Association.
• Jan. 13. Tape legislative update webcast. Attend meeting of Local & Voluntary Bars Committee re: planning for Law Day and new Georgia Bar Leadership Institute.
• Jan. 17. State Bar Personnel Committee.
• Jan. 20. Breakfast meeting with other creative trial lawyers re: practice development strategy. Tape legislative update webcast at Bar Center. Drive to Macon. Speak to lunch meeting of Macon Bar Association at 1880s vintage Macon Armory. Drive to Columbia, SC.
• Jan. 21. Attend SC Bar midyear meeting, with joint appearance U.S. Supreme Court Justices Breyer and Scalia discussing their competing views on the U.S. Constitution and the role of the Supreme Court. Sat with my brother-in-law who is at a law firm in Columbia.
• Jan. 24. Conference call re: business law legislation.
• Jan. 25. Attend Chief Justice’s State of the Judiciary address at Capitol and law practice technology seminar at Bar Center.
• Jan. 27. Tape legislative update webcast.  Attend hearing of House Non-Civil Judiciary Committee re: constitutional amendment to secure funding for indigent defense. Host lunch for that committee at Commerce Club.
• Feb. 1. Joint press conference with Attorney General in rotunda of Capitol re: Georgia Legal Food Frenzy campaign supporting Georgia’s regional food banks.
• Feb. 2. Southern Conference of Bar Presidents in New Orleans. Dinner with leadership of GA, NC & SC state bars.
• Feb. 3-4. National Conference of Bar Presidents. Spoke Saturday morning on international trade in legal services. Attend ABA Fellows dinner at World War II Museum. Talk with Justice Scalia about having him speak at some future Georgia Bar meeting.
• Feb. 7. Depositions in Henry County re: a truck wreck case.
• Feb. 8. Spoke to Waycross Bar Association lunch meeting. Worked on cases while an aide drove there and back.
• Feb. 9. Lunch re: options for funding Georgia Legal Services Program for poor Georgians. Host dinner with House Judiciary Committee and staff.
• Feb. 10. Tape legislative update webcast.
• Feb. 10-11. Marriage renewal event at church with my bride of 29 years.
• Feb. 13. Boy Scout patrons breakfast at Alston & Bird, confer with several judges and leaders of other statewide organizations.
• Feb. 15. Depositions at office during day. Host dinner with Senate Judiciary Committee.
• Feb. 16. At lunch meeting of Columbus Bar Association, present 50 year awards to six guys who went to Columbus High School together and have practiced law in their hometown for 50 years. Preside over State Bar Executive Committee meeting.
• Feb. 17-18.  Southern Trial Lawyers Association. Speak Saturday morning on “15 Exceptions to Independent Contractor Defense.” Attend Mardi Gras party.
• Feb. 19. Due to airline snafu, spend day in New Orleans airport, miss connecting flight to Tampa.
• Feb. 20-21. Depositions in Tampa re: a truck wreck case.
• Feb. 22. State Bar Communications Committee meeting re: upcoming media campaign and revamping of website.
• Feb. 24. Tape legislative update webcast.
• Feb. 25. Bar & Media Conference all day Saturday at Bar Center.
• Feb. 26. Serve communion.
• Feb. 27. Speak at Beginning Lawyers Program.
• Feb. 28. Speak at lunch meeting of Morgan County Rotary Club, Madison. Speak at Justice Robert Benham Community Service Awards at Bar Center in evening.
• Feb. 29. Conference call with leaders of an existing bar section and a proposed new section, resolving selection of name for new section.
• March 2. Tape legislative update webcast. State Bar Finance Committee meeting.
• March 7. Meeting with Chief Justice and staff. Speak at lunch meeting of North Fulton Republican Women’s Club re: criminal justice reform and, at their request, Shariah law.
• March 8. Legislative committee hearing on criminal justice reform legislation. Lunch with committee chair and chair of corresponding bar committee.
• March 9-11. Joint meeting of State Bar Executive Committee and Supreme Court at St. Simons Island. Preside over Executive Committee business meeting on Friday. Co-preside with Chief Justice in joint session on Saturday morning. Host dinners on Friday and Saturday evenings.
• March 11. Drive from St. Simons Island to Charleston for reenlistment and promotion ceremony for my “glow in the dark” baby brother (32 years younger) who is an assistant instructor in U. S. Navy nuclear propulsion program. Then after dinner drive from Charleston to Atlanta, getting home at 2 AM.
• March 13. Speak at lunch meeting of Western Circuit Bar Association in Athens. Conference call re: State Bar legislation in last 10 days of legislative session.

The next 81 days will be a lot more of the same, with numerous meetings and speaking engagements around the state, several joint appearances with the Attorney General, at least one trip to Washington, etc.

Then on June 2nd in Savannah, I will hand the gavel to my able successor, Robin Clark, and begin my first real vacation in several years.

Sometime later in June, I will return refreshed and ready to focus 110% on pushing my clients’ cases.

Mentone Community Church
Mentone, Alabama
May 30, 2010

Daddy was born a few hundreds yards from here in a farm house built around a pioneer log cabin.

It was a time before paved roads or electricity came to the mountain.

His grandmother Melissa’s family, the Keiths, were among the first settlers on this mountain after the cruel expulsion of the Cherokee.

His grandfather, Frank Shigley, came here from Michigan at 18, in 1883, after a barn fire injured his lungs, was one of the first Wesleyan Methodists in Alabama, was a founder of this church, and gave the land for Moon Lake School. The home where Frank and Melissa Shigley finished raising 12 children is the Mentone Community Center.

Dad’s father, Ernest Shigley, Sr., was a country school teacher and skilled carpenter who was called to the Wesleyan Methodist ministry at age 30, the year Dad, the fifth child, was born. He was pastor of this church, built or renovated 32 churches, and was president of the Gulf States Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. At 84, in the last year of his life, he built the current parsonage at this church.

That’s the heritage that helped to form him.

All his life Daddy told stories of growing up at Mentone during the Depression.
– Raising and preserving by traditional methods their food on the family farm.
– Providing food and shelter (in the barn) to Dust Bowl refugees who came through.
– Wearing patched hand-me-downs from Ernest, Harold and Leonard.
– Hauling syrup cane on a mule wagon to the sorghum mill and corn to the grist mill and as a teenager working for a dollar a day in a saw mill.
– The year the family couldn’t afford for all 5 kids to go to school, so he and Leonard stayed home and rode the bull all over the mountain.
– His older sister Brownie entertained him by making up stories of fantastic journeys in a magic Model T. (She has been in the Father’s house 59 years, and is still missed by all who knew her.)
– Playing baseball in pastures with pine knots for balls and hickory sticks for bats.
– His beautiful Aunt Margaret making a coconut cake for his 4th birthday.
– The excitement when electricity and radio first came to Mentone.
– Going to school at Moon Lake, and enjoying long unsupervised recesses when the kids would run next door to his grandparents’ house, where his grandmother would give them treats of teacakes she kept in a bleached fertilizer bag, sweet potatoes, or biscuits filled with honey.
– Life centered on the church, preaching Sundays rotating between 3 churches, revival meetings, all day singings and dinner on the grounds, and boys walking their best girl home from Sunday night services down dark country roads.
– After finishing their chores on hot summer days, boys went skinny dipping in Little River, and Dad once got covered completely with poison ivy. Another time he and his buddies were in the river when Miss Martha Berry, founder of Berry College, came by in a boat with her entourage. The boys stayed submerged til Miss Berry’s boat had passed.
– All his life he bore a scar on his foot from an incident while chopping kindling barefoot at age 7.

Like several of the Shigley cousins, Daddy went to the Wesleyan Methodist boarding high school at Central, SC, the campus that is now Southern Wesleyan University. (A cousin is here from Central today.) Never one to miss a chance to buck authority, the adolescent rebel found in Central’s strict rules a target rich environment.

In his senior year he dropped out of high school to join the Army against his parents’ wishes. An indifferent student, he was surprised when he knocked the top out of the aptitude test. He entered the Army Air Corps and flew 36 combat missions against Nazi Germany as a B-17 waist gunner based in Foggia, Italy.

Like many veterans he was reticent about his war experiences until old age. Sometimes in recent years I wasn’t sure where fact left off and embellishment began, but I took it all at face value. He told me:
– of harrowing flights through flak-filled skies, seeing other planes in his group shot down;
– of climbing out over an open bomb bay to ratchet loose a load of bombs that was stuck;
– of an emergency landing in Yugoslavia, and being escorted past the German troops to the Adriatic coast where a fishing boat got his crew back to Italy;
– of an incident while on sentry duty, shooting a saboteur who had infiltrated the unfenced airfield;
– at the end of the war, being confronted by the first German jet fighters that were too fast to shoot at, and being saved by the Tuskegee Airmen flying escort in P-51s.

In WWII, everyone got cigarettes rations and bomber crews got whiskey rations after every mission. Rations became addictions and his nemesis, but he sheltered me from it growing up.

After the war and college, Daddy found his way back to Mentone. For a while he was principal at Moon Lake School. He and his brother Leonard built the house I grew up in, Daddy buying a load of materials every payday til it was finished.

When Menlo had both a high school and a red light, he went there to teach and served six years as principal. My parents took the Class of ‘57 to Washington. Some of them are here today. (Show of hands.) I tagged along as a 5 year old mascot.

At Menlo, he helped dirt poor students – children of loggers and sharecroppers – find a way to get into college. One boy from the mountain lived in a cabin with no electricity, and had to study by the dome light of the log truck. Daddy got him into Emory. Delivering him there was my first visit to the Emory campus. I have heard from a number of his former students who say that he changed their lives, even saved their lives.

To maintain order he didn’t always have to speak. The snap of his fingers could be heard all the way down the hall with unmistakable clarity. And when needed, his paddle with holes drilled in it was an effective “board of education.”

Last summer I accompanied Dad to Menlo for a class reunion at a town celebration in the park. He was delighted when former students came up to greet him, some with great-grandchildren in tow.

Growing up at Mentone, and at Menlo School, I worshipped my father with all my heart. He was my hero.

He could be quite a joker. When I proposed to a girl on the playground in second grade, most adults who heard the story just thought it was cute. He saw it as a teachable moment. A few days later in mock seriousness Dad told me her family was building a house next to theirs for the very young couple. I could see my life pass before my eyes. Married at 7, a father at 8! Where was this going? He lectured me about trifling with a girl’s heart.

Two years after Menlo lost its high school in consolidation, we moved away from Mentone. Life would never be the same.

Daddy completed his doctorate at Alabama, and his career took off, as you can read in today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Those of us who loved my father, and who bear him to his rest today, knew a man who was surely not without faults, but who always cared deeply about the less fortunate, whether they were children of sharecroppers at Menlo, special needs children across Georgia, or Indian and Eskimo children in Alaska. I believe that loving spirit came out of his raising here at Mentone, in his family, in this community, and in this church.

But it sometimes seemed that the further he went from Mentone, the further he drifted from his Wesleyan raising.

Toward the end of life, however, he began to gravitate back. In the words of a country song, the roots of his raising ran deep. He came home for visits and talked of moving back here, but realized most of his friends here were gone.

In recent months, as he lingered on the front porch of eternity, Daddy told me many times, “I made a lot of mistakes in my life.” There was confession and repentance. After he entered nursing care this spring, I retrieved his car and when I turned on the ignition, a Blackwood Brothers gospel music CD worthy of any Holy Ghost revival blared out. He cherished visits from our pastors and the hospice chaplain.

Ten days ago, in his last lucid interval, we had our last dinner together at an outdoor restaurant table in the soft light of a May evening. Before I returned from a business trip last weekend, he had slipped into a sleep from which he did not emerge.

Thursday afternoon his soul went home.

The dreams that led him on the journey of a lifetime began here at Mentone, and now we bring back home his earthly remains.

In the final months of his life, Dad’s mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again – more himself than at any time on this earth.

And as the last flight took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven’s morning broke, I like to think that flights of angels sang him to his rest and that all the trumpets sounded on the other side.

See you later, Daddy.

I explained that at that time there were about 40 law firms in the United States that had web sites, and most of those were clustered around Silicon Valley in California.  Surely no one would ever pick a lawyer on the basis of a web site, but just for laughs I might give it a shot. Everyone laughed.

The following spring, in 1996, I set up a crude web site, knowing nothing about search engines or how to optimize them. After a while I bought some software in a box at CompUSA and began designing my web sites myself in order to have flexibility and control. For about four years I had the field of personal injury law web marketing in Georgia pretty much to myself.

Of course, I began to get invitations to speak to bar groups and tell how to do it. Flattered to be invited, I complied.

Unfortunately for me, there were often young lawyers who had never tried a case sitting in the back of the room, taking careful notes. A few weeks later I would see new web sites popping up in which those kids sometimes practically cloned my web site.

A few years ago I decided to outsource the technical work of maintaining a web site so I could focus on content.  At that point I launched what I think was the first lawyer blog in Georgia.

Sure enough, within a year other lawyers and law firms in Georgia started their own blogs. Now it seems almost every lawyer with a checkbook has a slick looking web site and blog.

I am constantly amused at how much some of the web site development companies charge lawyers who know nothing about this stuff.  It’s highway robbery. I should have started a web site development company back in ’96.

What’s next? I’m not talking.

My daughter is passionate about running. While she may never make the Olympics, she is fully committed in college cross country. She runs marathons and half marathons every chance she gets, just for fun. Last year she incorporated this into a piece of art that we are having framed to hang either at home or in my office:

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.

It doesn’t matter if you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better be running.

Ken Shigley is a Georgia trial lawyer focused on interstate trucking litigation. He is Secretary of the State Bar of Georgia, a member of the Georgia Courts Automation Commission, and chair fo the State Bar Electronic Court Filing Committee.

I pointed out that the time from Pearl Harbor to VJ Day was 3 years, 8 months and 6 days. If World War II could be fought and won in that time period, what are the obstacles to coming up with some workable tumor growth suppression agent in that time period? What are the obstacles to delivering a universal genetic disease screening tool, to assure early diagnosis and appropriate referral, within that time period? How can we overcome those obstacles? Remember that the perfect is often the enemy of the good, and this generation of kids with NF need reasonably good solutions now, not just the hope of perfect solutions when it’s too late to help them.

The same point about time and urgency can apply in many areas of life and work.  Think about it. If WWII could be won in 3 years, 8 months and 6 days, what is our excuse of letting so many endeavors drag out as long as they do?

The seemingly random cruelty of fate is tangible at such times. When I was in my teens, a popular TV show included each week the “flying fickle finger of fate award.” It was presented as comedy then, but too often it is part of tragedy.  It seems that nearly everyone I represent has been presented this unwelcome “award.”

Sometimes well-meaning people try to say that it was “the Lord’s will” or “the Lord took her” when a person was killed or catastrophically injured.  As a long-time adult Sunday School teacher, I think that is warped theology. It’s wrong to blame God when people break rules and cause tragedies.  Hurricanes and tsunamis are acts of God.  Truck wrecks are acts of men and of corporations, and they should be held accountable for the harm they cause.

Sometimes we can obtain justice for victims and their families. Other times all we can do is provide the comfort that someone who is knowledgeable cared enough to try. A trial lawyer is called to be more that just a gladiator.  We need to remember that highest source of law and of professionalism is a rule of unselfish love, of sincere concern for the highest good for the other person.  While we are not grief counselors or psychologists, we need to be able to help folks get through the ordeal of their loss.

The Shigley Law Firm  represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia. Ken Shigley was designated as a “SuperLawyer” in Atlanta Magazine and one of the “Legal Elite” in Georgia Trend Magazine. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, Chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Liability Institute and former chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute. He particularly focuses on cases arising from truck  and bus accidents, including those resulting from driver fatigue.  Click here for a free consultation with no obligation.

Therefore, I take great delight in sharing this video of a lumpy Welsh cell phone salesman with bad teeth surprising the judges and the crowd in a British version of “American Idol.”  (Thanks to my friend Jim Long for bringing it to my attention.)

Sometimes a cell phone salesman can come out of nowhere to sing opera that moves the audience to tears.

Sometimes a backwoods hick lawyer like Abe Lincoln can lead a nation through its time of greatest peril and become an enduring icon of democracy.

Sometimes an humble housewife on the brink of poverty, like Susanna Wesley, can raise children who move the hearts of millions and whose followers lead earthshaking movements of social reform.

Sometimes a lump of coal can become a diamond.

And the arrogance of snobs and plutocrats, of any time and place, doesn’t change that.

The Shigley Law Firm  represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to the multijurisdictional practice and pro hac vice rules in each state. Ken Shigley was designated as a “SuperLawyer” in Atlanta Magazine and one of the “Legal Elite” in Georgia Trend Magazine. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, Chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Liability Institute and former chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute. He particularly focuses on cases arising from truck wrecks and accidents (tractor trailers truck wrecks, semi truck wrecks,18 wheeler truck wrecks, big rig truck wrecks, log truck wrecks, dump truck wrecks.

First came an inquiry about a potential trucking wrongful death case from a lawyer in my hometown who I have known since we entered ninth grade together in 1965, and for whom I have the greatest personal and professional esteem. 

The next day came a call from a lawyer in Louisiana, who got my name from a prominent New Orleans attorney, originally from a tiny town in south Georgia, who I met at Georgia’s Governor’s Honors Program in Macon in 1968. In conversation about the caller’s largely Cajun hometown, it turns out we had both gone out some with the same girl from that town, who was in his high school class, when we were teenagers.  

The same day came a call from a lawyer in a small town near the Florida line, whose law partner was in the office next to me at an Atlanta law firm starting in 1981, to talk about a potential case.

Then I went downtown to a meeting of the State Bar Disciplinary Rules and Procedures Committee. Looking around the table, I realized that I had known each participant in a wide variety of contexts for periods ranging from ten to twenty-five years.

These days, about half of my legal work comes from new contacts who find me through the Internet and the “newcomer” referral sources that are common in modern metro Atlanta, and about half come through a traditional network of relationships spanning decades and even generations that weave through Georgia and across the South.  It’s a fascinating mixture to which only a talented novelist could do justice.

The Shigley Law Firm  represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to the multijurisdictional practice and pro hac vice rules in each state. Ken Shigley was designated as a “SuperLawyer” in Atlanta Magazine and one of the “Legal Elite” in Georgia Trend Magazine. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, Chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Liability Institute and former chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute. He particularly focuses on cases arising from truck wrecks and accidents (tractor trailers truck wrecks, semi truck wrecks,18 wheeler truck wrecks, big rig truck wrecks, log truck wrecks, dump truck wrecks.

A federal court case in Rochester under the Americans with Disabilities Act a few years ago helped bring about a Deaf Equal Access Fund, in cooperation with the local bar association and an interpreting service, to enable the deaf community to have full access to services of the legal community. That is worth studying as a model for what might be done in Georgia, though I doubt any community in Georgia approaches the concentration of D/deaf population that you find in Rochester.

Because of my daughter (who lost her hearing at 18 due to NF2, got an Auditory Brainstem Implant at House Ear Institute, and spent this summer taking ASL at Gallaudet University), I have begun to learn ASL.  This fall I will be taking ASL classes with my wife two nights a week, subject of course to trial, deposition and work related travel schedules.  Though my ASL skills are still at the unskilled beginner level, and may never become fluent, my daughter has raised my consciousness about the challenges facing the D/deaf and hard of hearing. At least I know how to sign, “old dogs can’t learn new tricks.”

The Shigley Law Firm  represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to the multijurisdictional practice and pro hac vice rules in each state. Ken Shigley was designated as a “SuperLawyer” in Atlanta Magazine and one of the “Legal Elite” in Georgia Trend Magazine. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, Chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Liability Institute and former chair of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute. He particularly focuses on cases arising from truck wrecks and accidents (tractor trailers truck wrecks, semi truck wrecks,18 wheeler truck wrecks, big rig truck wrecks, log truck wrecks, dump truck wrecks.

Yesterday a sturdy young man of eighteen, who at the end of this month will fly off to begin college studies — and college football — in California, stood in front of a church sanctuary and received his Eagle Scout award.  At the conclusion of the ceremony the often monosyllabic teenager stood alone with his feet firmly planted and talked for about five minutes, graciously and articulately thanking the adult leaders of the troop who had “put up with” him along the way.  Last he thanked “Dad, who told me to keep going when I didn’t want to do this any more; he told me when I finished I would be glad I did, and I am glad.” Then he came down and gave me a big hug.

There are moments in life you just want to hang on to. This was one.

Here is the Eagle Scout Charge that was administered to my son yesterday afternoon:

I have the honor to give you the Eagle Scout charge on the occasion of your elevation to the highest rank in Scouting.

The Boy Scouts of all nations constitute one of the most wholesome and significant movements in the world’s history and you have been counted worthy of this high rank in the Boy Scouts of America.

All who know you rejoice in your achievement. Your position, as you well know, is one of honor and responsibility. You are a marked man. As an Eagle Scout you have assumed a solemn obligation to do your duty to God, to country, to your fellow Scouts and to mankind in general. This is a great undertaking.

As you live up to your obligations you bring honor to yourself and to your brother Scouts. Your responsibility goes beyond your fellow Scouts to your country and your god. America has many good things to give you and your children after you; but these things depend for the most part on the quality of her citizens.

Our country has had a great past. You are here to make the future greater. I charge you to undertake your citizenship with a solemn dedication. Be a leader, but, lead only towards the best. Lift up every task you do and every office you hold to the high level of service to god and to your fellow man. So live and serve that these who know you, will be inspired to the finest living. We have too many who use their strength and their brains to exploit others and to gain selfish ends. I charge you to be among those who dedicate their skills and ability to the common good. Build America on the solid foundations of clean living, honest work, unselfish citizenship and reverence for god and, whatever others say or may do, you leave behind you a record of which every Scout may be justly proud.

On behalf of the Court of Honor of the Atlanta Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, with the high hope that you will always represent the finest of character and citizenship, we welcome you into the brotherhood of Eagle Scouts and congratulate you, your parents and your Scout leaders.

Pass it on, son.