When you find a lawyer on the Internet, there may be an inclination to think of him or her as some sort of free floating, rootless organism, taking all nutrition from cyberspace. This week, however, I have had several reminders of how intertwined professional relationships can be. First came an inquiry about a potential trucking wrongful…
Continue reading ›Well, I’ve begun what some say is a “life sentence” on the Disciplinary Rules and Procedures Committee of the State Bar of Georgia, working on updating our Rules of Professional Conduct. We meet every month or two in the former Federal Reserve Bank vault in the Bar Center (where cell phones don’t work due to…
Continue reading ›My good friend Jay Cook from Athens, a former president of the State Bar of Georgia, wrote a stellar guest editorial that appeared on the op/ed page of the AJC this morning. Acknowledging that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, I’m reproducing the whole thing here: First it was Vioxx. Then it was poisonous…
Continue reading ›My law school classmate and long-time friend, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Manis, has announced that she will be taking senior status on October 31st. In law school, Judge Manis was a young mom going back to law school after working several years as a social worker. With a spouse and three young children,…
Continue reading ›It takes a lot for Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine — who is normally considered to be in the pocket of the insurance industry — to launch an apparently aggressive investigation of a major insurance company. Now, however, even Oxendine has ordered a market conduct examination into recent allegations of invasion of privacy, fraud and…
Continue reading ›While I feed my family largely by handling catastrophic damage suits against trucking companies, I receive a lot of interesting communications from truck drivers critical of practices in the industry in which they are the underpaid pawns. The following was posted as a comment about a specific company, but I’m putting on the blog as…
Continue reading ›Why do people distrust lawyers as a group? I have seen examples this year — mostly from one law firm that shall remain nameless — of sharp practice that may or may not be punishable under the Rules of Professional Conduct but goes well beyond the bounds of decency and professionalism. In one case, a…
Continue reading ›An article in Saturday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper highlights some of the systemic problems with hours of service and driver fatigue in over the road trucking. A few of the key points: The Shigley Law Firm represents plaintiffs in wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases statewide in Georgia, and in other states subject to the…
Continue reading ›A judge in Queens County, NY, recently wrote a 13-page order awarding double the standard compensation for a sign language interpreter and spotlighting a severe shortage of court-certified interpreters in American Sign Language for the deaf. He noted that even in Rochester, NY, which has the largest per capita deaf population in the country, only…
Continue reading ›My friend Matt Flournoy in Marietta has posted on YouTube an excellent video explaining the extreme forces acting upon the human body in motor vehicle crashes. 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…
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