Kenneth L. Shigley, Sr.

Ken Shigley is the only Georgia attorney with this unique combination of qualifications. –

Professional leadership

• Past President, State Bar of Georgia (2011-12). which includes all lawyers and judges in Georgia. He laid the foundations for the statewide system of electronic court filing.
• Past Chair of Institute for Continuing Legal Education in Georgia (2012-13)
• American Bar Association House of Delegates (2013-14)
• “Short list” of nominees for appointment to Georgia Court of Appeals (2012)
• Chair, American Association for Justice (AAJ) Motor Vehicle Collision, Highway & Premises Liability Section(2015-16), which includes over 2,500 trial lawyers in all 50 states and specialized litigation groups on:
  • Trucking Litigation
  • Bus Litigation
  • Traumatic Brain Injury
  • Spinal Cord Injury
  • Motorcycle Litigation
  • Bicycle Litigation
  • Resort Torts Litigation and
  • Inadequate Security Litigation.
• Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform, appointed by Governor Nathan Deal (2011-13).
• Commission on Continuing Lawyer Competency (2012-13)
• Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism (2011-12).
• Georgia Commission on Dispute Resolution (2011-12).
• Georgia Courts Automation Commission (2008-10)
• Judicial Council of Georgia Standing Committee on Technology(2015-20).
• National Conference of Bar Presidents (2010-13).
• Southern Conference of Bar Presidents (2010-13).
• Chair, State Bar of Georgia Tort & Insurance Practice Section (1994-95).
• Chair, Georgia Insurance Law Institute (1994)

Traditions of Excellence Award for lifetime achievement, 2019.

Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys – Board of Regents (2015-21)

Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum

• Based on numerous verdicts and settlements in the millions of dollars

Triple board certification, National Board of Trial Advocacy:

• Civil Trial Advocacy (1995)
• Civil Pretrial Advocacy (2012)
• Truck Accident law (2019)

Diplomate, National College of Advocacy

Highest peer ratings:

• “AV”
• “Super Lawyer”
• “Legal Elite”
• Avvo 10.0
• “Who’s Who in Law” listing in Atlanta Business Chronicle
• Listed in the Bar Register or Preeminent Lawyers (since 1995)

Author & Teacher

• Lead author – Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation & Practice (2010-21)
• Chapter author – Handling Motor Vehicle Accident Cases
• Numerous articles in legal periodicals
• Has taught law students at Emory and other lawyers in continuing legal education programs throughout the US
• A graduate of Furman University and Emory University Law School (where he has been an adjunct instructor in trial techniques and small firm practice), Mr. Shigley also completed the Ultimate Trial Advocacy course at Harvard Law School, an executive education program at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and several regional programs of the Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College.

In 2019, he was lead or co-counsel in cases in which plaintiffs recovered a gross amount of $25.8 million. At the end of 2019, he merged his practice into the law firm of Johnson & Ward which was established in 1949.  

In 2018, Mr. Shigley competed in the statewide nonpartisan judicial primary for a seat on the Court of Appeals of Georgia. Though he came in second in that election, he won more votes on that primary election day than did Brian Kemp, who went on to win a primary runoff and general election for Governor.

• He has handled successfully many cases involving injuries arising from auto, truck and bus accidents, dangerous premises and defective products, including:
  • Wrongful death
  • Spinal cord injury (quadriplegia and paraplegia)
  • Brain injury
  • Amputations
  • Burns
  • Neck injuries
  • Back injuries (vertebral fractures and herniated discs)
  • Fractured arms, legs, hips and ankles.

Representative Cases: All cases are different, and past performance does not guarantee future results, but here are a few representative cases.

• $20 million recovery for occupants of a college baseball team bus that crashed in Georgia. Mr. Shigley led in organization the joint prosecution groups and represented 10 of 20 team members on the bus, whose individual recoveries were determined by an agreed formula.
• $11 million confidential settlement for two family members who lost limbs in a car crash. Mr. Shigley organized the joint prosecution team and represented one of the family members individually.
• $9.3 million recovery apportioned among 13 plaintiffs on an agreed formula, for a van load of cheerleaders in a crash caused by failure of a tire. Mr. Shigley led in organization of the joint prosecution group and  represented one of the families with a wrongful death claim. 
• $6 million confidential settlement in a legally complex truck crash case. Mr. Shigley organized the joint prosecution group, and was lead counsel for two wrongful death cases and one head injury case. 
• $5.7 million confidential settlement of a medical malpractice case. Mr. Shigley was co-counsel for the decedent’s family.  
• $3 million confidential settlement of truck crash case in Southwest Georgia. 
• $2.3 million jury for client who suffered complex leg fracture in head on collision with truck operated for interstate motor carrier.. This was at the time the largest jury verdict in history of Gordon County, GA. 
• $1.25 million policy limits settlement for a young man who was t-boned in an intersection in Cobb County suffering a brain injury, despite evidence that he was talking on the phone with his gay partner while turning left in an intersection.
•  $1.3 million settlement in Rome, Georgia – $300,000 above insurance policy limits — for family of young man killed when rear-ended by tractor trailer on interstate at night.
•  $1.2 million jury verdict in Fulton County for woman with head and neck injuries who had consumed cocaine and tequila with the driver of sports car in which she was a passenger.
• Confidential settlement of logging truck wrongful death case for 12 times the amount of insurance coverage on the truck itself after litigating insurance coverage, bankruptcy and wrongful death issues in three separate courts.
• Obtained confidential multi-million dollar settlement against auto manufacturer where defective design of anti-lock brake system led to crash of minivan, resulting in quadriplegia and death.
• Obtained confidential seven figure settlement against manufacturer of sports utility vehicle where defective design of passenger restraint system and roof led to quadriplegia.
• Served as co-counsel in automotive products liability case resulting in $6 million jury verdict for defect that led to passenger ejection in rollover.
• Secured confidential settlement for 6 1/2 times the amount of insurance coverage on the car in a car-motorcycle collision in south Georgia.
• $1 million policy limit in wrongful death case against small trucking company for Georgia family for death of a wife and mother killed in a crash in Tennessee.
• $850,000 settlement during jury deliberation at end of a trial in Macon for neck fusion injury for man struck by dump truck.
• $750,000 for airline passenger who suffered ankle fracture when struck by motorized cart in airport terminal concourse.
• Mr. Shigley has published numerous articles in legal journals and made scores of continuing legal education presentations at both state and national levels. Among other places outside Georgia, he has been a presenter, program chair or moderator at continuing legal education programs in his practice area in Montreal, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boca Raton, Las Vegas, Nashville.

A “lawyer’s lawyer” and “judge’s lawyer,” he has represented lawyers and judges in sensitive personal and professional matters. He has been chosen by opposing lawyers to serve as a neutral mediator in hundreds of cases. See reviews from clients and colleagues.

Often on the leading edge in new developments, he launched the first law firm website in the Southeast in 1996 and one of the first lawyer blogs in the Southeast in 2005.

After graduation from Emory Law School, Mr. Shigley went home to begin his career as an Assistant District Attorney in the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit, which then included the counties of Douglas, Haralson, Paulding and Polk. Then, after a few years of hometown general practice in Douglas County, he joined an insurance defense firm in Atlanta with a statewide practice. He has successfully handled litigation of cases in the following 93 of Georgia’s 159 counties, stretching from the mountains to the sea: Bacon, Baldwin, Banks, Barrow, Bartow, Berrien, Bibb, Bulloch, Burke, Butts, Camden, Carroll, Catoosa, Chatham, Chattooga, Cherokee, Clarke, Clayton, Clinch, Cobb, Coffee, Columbia, Coweta, Crisp, Dade, DeKalb, Dodge, Dougherty, Douglas, Elbert, Fannin, Fayette, Floyd, Forsyth, Franklin, Fulton, Gilmer, Glynn, Grady, Greene, Gwinnett, Habersham, Hall, Haralson, Hart, Heard, Henry, Houston, Jackson, Jeff Davis, Lamar, Laurens, Liberty, Lowndes, Lumpkin, McIntosh, Meriwether, Monroe, Morgan, Murray, Newton, Oconee, Paulding, Pickens, Polk, Pulaski, Rabun, Richmond, Rockdale, Schley, Spalding, Stephens, Sumter, Tattnall, Telfair, Terrell, Thomas, Tift, Towns, Treutlen, Toombs, Troup, Turner, Union, Upson, Walker, Walton, Ware, Washington, Wayne, White, Whitfield, Wilkinson, Worth.

Mr. Shigley is admitted to practice in:

• Georgia (all trial and appellate courts)
• U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia
• U.S. District Court, Middle District of Georgia
• U.S. District Court, Southern District of Georgia
• U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals
• Supreme Court of the United States

He has been admitted pro hac vice for individual cases in Florida, Alabama and Nevada, and handles cases elsewhere in strict compliance with the applicable bar rules on multijurisdictional practice.

Mr. Shigley is an elder at Peachtree Presbyterian Church. Over the years, he has been a Trustee of the Peachtree Trust, assistant scoutmaster of the Boy Scout troop where his son became an Eagle Scout, YMCA youth soccer coach, board chair of a church-based (now independent) child development center, board member of Lifegate counseling center, secretary of the Bill Maness Good Samaritan Scholarship Fund, Inc. For several years, he was also on the national advisory board of the Children’s Tumor Foundation Endurance Team with which he completed the Chicago Marathon, New York City Marathon and half marathons in Savannah, Las Vegas, Columbia and Atlanta.

Ken and Sally Shigley were married almost 34 years before her death due to a brain tumor in 2017. His daughter hospice nurse in New Hampshire and runs several marathons per year. His son is a golf fitness trainer in Atlanta.

• An eighth-generation Georgian, Ken Shigley is a former president of the State Bar of Georgia, which includes all lawyers and judges in the state.
• Traditions of Excellence Award for lifetime achievement.
• Before becoming a plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyer, he was an Assistant District Attorney prosecuting criminal cases, including murder, armed robbery, burglary, rape, etc. He then worked nine years in an insurance defense law firm, defending personal injury and wrongful death cases all over Georgia.
• Lead author, Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation & Practice (eleven annual editions, 2010-2021)
• Former chair, American Association for Justice Motor Vehicle Collision, Highway & Premises Liability Section.
• Former chair, Institute for Continuing Legal Education in Georgia.
• First Georgia personal injury lawyer to earn three board certifications from National Board of Trial Advocacy (Civil Trial Advocacy, Civil Pretrial Practice, Truck Accident Law)
• Several during his career, Mr. Shigley has held the record for the highest jury verdict or settlement in several counties in Georgia, including one trial in a rural county where the jury awarded a million dollars more than he asked for in closing argument. That verdict was based upon a formula he had suggested while avoiding the appearance of being too greedy.
• Speaker or program chair at scores of continuing legal education programs on various aspects of personal injury law and advocacy in Georgia and across North America over 20+ years.
• Multimillion Dollar Advocates Forum
• Master, Lamar Inn of Court
• Former member of the American Bar Association House of Delegates.
• Furman University (B.A. 1973)
• Emory University Law School (J.D. 1977).
• Harvard School of Government, certificate in financial stewardship of nonprofit organizations (2009).
• Harvard Law School certificates in negotiation and mediation (2022).