Atlanta Injury Law Blog

Five years ago, a tour bus carrying the baseball team from Bluffton University in Ohio crashed in predawn darkness in Atlanta. I was part of the litigation team of Ohio and Georgia lawyers who represented the team members and their families. We finally concluded the cases last summer. As a direct result of the Bluffton…

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 Uniform Interstate Discovery and Depositions Act has finally passed in Georgia. It will make it easier for Georgia lawyers to get subpoenas for depositions, document production and inspection of premises in other states that have enacted the same uniform law, and will make it easier for lawyers in those states to do the same…

For years we have explored cell phone distraction as a factor in the cause of motor vehicle accidents, including commercial trucking accidents. Discovery of cell phone records has become routine in litigation. We have read all the studies, deposed the experts and argued about the legal ramifications. I won’t rehash all that here. Now the…

Truck driver fatigue is a chronic issue in the causation of commercial truck accidents. Now the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has tweaked the rule yet again, but only at the outer margins of the hours of service rules. Effective February 27, 2012, the FMCSA revises the hours of service (HOS) regulations so as to…

Fatalities in large truck accidents increased 8.7% in 2010, according to a report released last week by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. NHTSA said in its annual report that 3,675 people died in trucking related accidents in 2010, an increase of 295 over the 3,380 fatalities in 2009. The number injured in trucking accidents…

(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…