Kenneth L. Shigley, Sr.

Occasionally, clients who read Ken Shigley’s professional bio before meeting say they expected him to be a tall, stern and intimidating personal injury trial lawyer. He’s not that tall, and is stern and intimidating only with opposing parties. Much like a relative who was a three-star Admiral in the Navy but prone to shorts and flip-flops off duty, Ken is low-key and personable with friends and clients.

An eighth-generation Georgian, Mr. Shigley is a past president of the State Bar of Georgia, former board chair of the Institute for Continuing Legal Education in Georgia, and recipient of the Tradition of Excellence Award for lifetime achievement. He was the lead author of eleven annual editions of Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation and Practice (Thompson Reuters West, 2010-21), and was the first Georgia lawyer to earn three board certifications from the National Board of Trial Advocacy: Civil Trial Advocacy (1995), Civil Pretrial Advocacy (2012), and Truck Accident Law (2019).

As Georgia Bar President, he led the fight for creation of the statewide electronic court filing in Georgia, which was implemented over the next few years. He also created the Next Generation Court Commission, which supported both electronic court filing and judicial video conference hearings. Those transformative changes were essential to operation of the courts during the 2020 pandemic and helped to bring the Georgia court system into the 21st century.

His career has included three decades as a plaintiffs’ trial lawyer after one decade as an insurance defense lawyer. Earlier, he began his career as an Assistant District Attorney prosecuting felony criminal cases in a four-county rural circuit and worked in a small-town general law practice.

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.

Often on the “bleeding edge” in new developments, in 1995 he made a presentation at the Insurance Law Institute on “practical uses of the Internet in your law practice” before there were any. In 1996, he launched the first law firm website in the Southeast and in 2005 started one of the first lawyer blogs in the Southeast. In 1999-2000, he was CEO of a nascent startup to provide online mediation services, aspiring to combine desktop video conferencing and a form of artificial intelligence. It was 20 years before commercially available technology caught up with that vision.

Honors & Awards:
“Best Lawyers in America” (2024)
Tradition of Excellence Award for Lifetime Achievement (2019)
Diplomate, National College of Advocacy (2017)
National Board of Trial Advocacy, Board Certification in Truck Accident Law (2019)
National Board of Trial Advocacy, Board Certification in Civil Pretrial Advocacy (2012)
National Board of Trial Advocacy, Board Certification in Civil Trial Advocacy (1995)

1994-present Georgia “Super Lawyers” and Georgia “Legal Elite”

Professional leadership:
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.

Board Chair, Institute for Continuing Legal Education in Georgia (2012-13)

American Bar Association House of Delegates (2013-14)

Georgia Judicial Nominating Commission included Ken Shigley in a “short list” of nominees for appointment to the Georgia Court of Appeals (2012).

Chair, American Association for Justice (AAJ) Motor Vehicle Collision, Highway & Premises Liability Section (2015-16), which included 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.

Criminal Justice Reform Council, 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 Insurance Law Section (1994-95).

Chair, Georgia Insurance Law Institute (1994)

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

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 two-person nonpartisan election, he won more votes on that primary election day than Brian Kemp, who went on to win a primary runoff and general election for Governor.

Highest peer ratings:

“AV” in Martindale-Hubbell

“Super Lawyer”

“Legal Elite”

Avvo 10.0

“Who’s Who in Law” listing in Atlanta Business Chronicle

Listed in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers (since 1995)

Author & Teacher

Lead author – Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation & Practice (Thompson Reuters West, 2010-21)

Chapter author – Handling Motor Vehicle Accident Cases (Thompson Reuters West)

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, and Nashville.

Education:

Harvard Law School, Certificates in Dispute Resolution and Negotiation, 2022.

Emory University Law School, J.D., 1977

Furman University, B.A., 1973

Bar Admissions:

Mr. Shigley has been admitted to practice in all state and federal courts 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.

Case results:

Since the 1990s, Mr. Shigley has been included in the Multi-Million Dollars Advocates Forum based upon case recoveries in multiples of a million dollars. He has successfully handled numerous cases involving injuries arising from truck, auto, and bus accidents, defective products, and dangerous premises, including cases of wrongful death, brain injury, back and neck injuries, paralysis from spinal cord injury, burn injuries, fractured arms, legs hips and ankles, amputations, and a wide variety of other bodily injuries.

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

In 2024, Mr. Shigley’s team had a $5.5 million recovery in a medical malpractice case involving a radiologist’s failure to report to the treating physician and patient an observed lung tumor which later progressed to Stage 3 lung cancer.

In 2019, before the pandemic interruption, he was lead or co-counsel in cases in which plaintiffs recovered a gross amount of $25.8 million.

$20 million recovery for occupants of a college baseball team bus that crashed in Georgia. Mr. Shigley led the organization of a joint prosecution group 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 individually represented one of the family members.

$9.3 million recovery apportioned among 13 plaintiffs on an agreed formula for a van load of cheerleaders in a crash caused by tire failure. Mr. Shigley led the 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 involving international shipment of container freight. 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 arising from failure to diagnose a pulmonary embolus (blood clot) that traveled to the heart. Mr. Shigley was co-counsel for the decedent’s family.

$3 million confidential settlement of a truck crash case in Southwest Georgia.

$2.3 million jury for a client who suffered a complex leg fracture in a head-on collision with a truck operated for the interstate motor carrier. This was, at the time, the largest jury verdict in the 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 a family of a young man killed when rear-ended by a tractor-trailer on the interstate at night.

$1.2 million jury verdict in Fulton County for a woman with head and neck injuries who had consumed cocaine and tequila with the driver of a 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. Eighteen-wheeler log trucks in Georgia are usually grossly underinsured and notoriously dangerous hazards on the highways.

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 the defective design of passenger restraint system and roof led to quadriplegia.

Served as co-counsel in an automotive products liability case resulting in a $6 million jury verdict for a defect that led to passenger ejection in a 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 a small trucking company from Virginia for a Georgia family for the death of a wife and mother killed in a crash in Tennessee. The defendant company was a “chameleon carrier” whose owners had lost federal motor carrier authority under one name due to a poor safety record, then reincorporated at obtained motor carrier authority under another name.

$850,000 settlement during jury deliberation at the end of a trial in Macon for neck fusion injury for a man struck by a dump truck.

$750,000 for an airline passenger who suffered a severe ankle fracture, nearly ampuating her foot, when struck by a motorized cart in an airport terminal concourse.

Personal:
Ken and Sally Shigley were married almost 34 years before her death due to a brain tumor in 2017. Their adult children are “grown and flown with houses and spouses.” His daughter is a hospice nurse in New Hampshire and has run 47 marathons. His son is a golf fitness trainer in Atlanta. He has served as a volunteer, board member, or officer of numerous community and church organizations.

Mr. Shigley also serves as a neutral mediator at Miles Mediation & Arbitration Service, Southeast’s largest alternative dispute resolution firm. He also travels extensively, having visited 24 countries, mostly independently, since 2017. He has served on church mission teams in Cuba, Guatemala, and Malawi.

Counties served:

Mr. Shigley 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.