Georgia Ranked #1 in Business Climate

Our home state of Georgia has been ranked #1 in business climate, according to Site Selection magazine’s annual ranking of states’ attractiveness to corporate facility investors. The selection criteria included a survey of corporate site selectors, the states’ competitiveness, qualified projects so far in 2013 on a per capita basis and state tax burdens on new and mature firms.

Georgia  is now more economically competitive than states such as Texas that have enacted draconian measures to block access of injured people to their court systems.   Georgia has also become more attractive to businesses than North Carolina  and Tennessee , both of which have severely cut into the rights of injured people.

Nothing in Georgia’s legal environment holds back our business climate. Nothing about the availability of our court system to injury people and their survivors retards our economic competitiveness.

Georgia juries generally follow the state motto of “Wisdom, Justice, Moderation.”  And when the facts support a large verdict, Georgia juries are unafraid to adhere to the Latin inscription that hangs behind the Justices in the Supreme Court of Georgia: “Fiat justitia ruat caelum,” meaning “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

Before Site Selection magazine announced its state business climate analysis , site-selection teams at the dozens of manufacturers, biotech companies and aerospace concerns came to the same conclusion on their own, announcing Georgia locations for their next major capital investment projects.

Georgia is fortunate to political leaders today who recognize that it is infrastructure, education and tax systems that drive economic development, not “tort reform” measures that merely kick little people when they are down.

Ken Shigley is an Atlanta trial attorney who is a past president of the State Bar of Georgia and a board certified civil trial and pre-trial advocate of the National Board of Legal Specialty Certification .  His practice focuses on serious personal injury, wrongful death and commercial trucking litigation.