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From the President
State Bar of Georgia President
Kenneth L. Shigley, 2011-12
 | Kenneth L. Shigley is the 49th president of the State Bar of Georgia. Shigley began his career as an assistant district attorney in the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit, worked in small town general practice, practiced for a decade in an Atlanta insurance defense firm, and for the past 20 years has been in plaintiffs' practice. He currently practices at the firm of Chambers, Aholt & Rickard in Atlanta, focusing primarily on commercial trucking tort litigation for plaintiffs. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy and author of Georgia Law of Torts: Trial Preparation & Practice (West, 2010), and is a national board member of the Trucking Litigation Group. In May, Gov. Nathan Deal appointed Shigley to the 2011 Criminal Justice Reform Council. A native of Mentone, Ala., Shigley graduated from high school in Douglasville, Ga. He received his B.A. from Furman University (1973) and his J.D. from Emory University School of Law (1977). |
Articles:
"Tough On Crime, Smart On Crime" (Georgia Bar Journal, December 2011)
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 younger. We covered four mostly rural counties. Abe Lincoln might have recognized the circuit-riding aspect of that life, but for the fact that I traveled by 73 Dodge Dart instead of by horse. (read full article)
"Virtuous Lawyer is Not an Oxymoron" (Georgia Bar Journal, October 2011)
James had great unrealized potential. Son of a minister in another Southern state, he won admission to an Ivy League university but washed out during his first year and went home to complete college and law school. A marvelous storyteller, his closing arguments could hold juries spellbound. But his cleverness was so unrestrained by mere facts that judges and other lawyers learned to distrust anything he said. (read full article)
"A Lawyer's Calling" (Georgia Bar Journal, August 2011)
It was a Sunday in December nearly 40 years ago at my grandparents' rural home at Mentone, Ala., a bucolic spot best known for summer camps, midway between Chattanooga and Gadsden on the hundred-mile- long plateau that is Lookout Mountain. Within a mile radius were the simple houses, church, school, woods, fields and country graveyards which helped define "home" for several generations of a family steeped in a morality so strict that, for some of us, it proved more aspirational than operational. (read full article)
"Stewardship, Calling and Love" (Georgia Bar Journal, August 2011)
Madame Chief Justice, Chief Judge Ellington, members of the judiciary and the Legislature and Board of Governors, fellow Georgia lawyers and friends, you have given me an honor far beyond anything I possibly could have deserved. (read full article)
Speeches: (video)
Diversity Luncheon Welcome Address
State Bar President Ken Shigley delivered the welcoming address at the 19th Annual State Bar of Georgia Diversity Luncheon on Sept. 29, 2011.
YLD Committee Chair and Rep Orientation (part 1) (part 2)
State Bar President Ken Shigley speaks at the Young Lawyers Division Committee Chair and Representatives Orientation on July 8, 2011.
Incoming Presidential Remarks (part 1) (part 2)
Ken Shigley was sworn into office on June 4, 2011, as the 49th president of the State Bar of Georgia. These are his remarks to the Board of Governors on his plans for the 2011-12 Bar year.