Honors and Awards:

• "AV Preeminent Peer Review 5.0 out of 5" rated by Martindale-Hubble

Special Licenses/Certifications:

• Board Certified Civil Trial Specialist by Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education and Specialization and the National Board of Trial Advocacy, 1997
• Georgia Registered Neutral (Mediator)
• Rule 31 Listed General Civil Mediator (by the Tennessee Supreme Court Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission)

Bar/Professional Activity:

• Former Legislative Committee Co-Chair, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association
• Former Budget Committee Chair, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association
• Collateral Source Disclosure – Trial Practice Ideas and Suggestions, The Verdict, December, 1988
• Challenges to Collateral Source Disclosure Pending Before Supreme Court, The Verdict, June/July/August, 1990
• Collateral Source Battle Still Not Over, The Verdict (Journal of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association), July/August, 1992
• Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, Challenge Committee, 2005-2006(1987-1989, to support legal and constitutional challenges to tort reform legislation)
• U.S. Court of Appeals 6th Circuit
• U.S. District Court Eastern District of Tennessee
• U.S. District Court Northern District of Georgia
• U.S. District Court Middle District of Georgia
• Member, The Association of Plaintiff Interstate Trucking Lawyers of America
• President, Lookout Mountain Bar Association, 1989-1990
• Member, Lookout Mountain Bar Association
• Member, Chattanooga Bar Association
• Member, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group
• Sustaining Member, American Association for Justice
• Champion Member, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association
• Sustaining Member, Tennessee Association for Justice

Scholarly Lectures and Writings:

• Apportionment of Damages - The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (A Conversation with an Empty Chair), Annual Convention & Seminar, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, 2013
• Taking Advantage of Apportionment of Fault and Avoiding the Pitfalls of Non-Party Fault in Trucking Cases, Catastrophic Commercial Vehicle Cases Seminar, Institute of Continuing Legal Education in Georgia, 2013
• Comparing Tennesse Workers Compensation and Georgia Workers Compensation, Advanced Workers Compensation Seminar, Sterling Education Services, 2012
• Start at the Very Beginning – Don’t wreck your case by forgetting the fundamentals, case intake, investigation and discovery., Identifying Issues and Building a Winning Case Seminar, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, 1994
• What comes next after Denton v. Conway Southern Express, 261 Ga. 41 (1991) which declared portions of the Tort Reform Act of 1987 to be unconstitutional? , Collateral Source Battle Still Not Over, The Verdict (Journal of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association), 1992
• Victories have been achieved at the trial court level, and cases are pending before the Georgia Supreme Court challenging the admission of collateral source evidence at trial., Challenges to Collateral Source Disclosure Pending Before Supreme Court, The Verdict, 1990
• How can trial lawyers deal adjust to and live with collateral source disclosure while at the same time attacking the new law whenever possible?, Collateral Source Disclosure–Trial Practice Ideas and Suggestions, The Verdict, 1988
• Annual Seminar and Convention, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, April:  Drunk Driving: Third Party Liability, 1986
• Fall Workshop, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, November:  Practical Approaches to Tort Reform, 1987
• Proof of Liability and Damages, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, December:  Slip and Fall – Getting the Six Figure Verdict, 1988
• Life After No-Fault, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, October:  The Unholy Triumvirate: Collateral Source, Set-Off and Subrogation, 1991
• Co-Chair, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association “Nuts and Bolts Workers Compensation” Seminar, March 2002
• Practicing Law After SB3, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association:  It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again, March 2005
• Technology Workshop, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association:  CaseMap and TextMap in Plaintiff’s Practice, March 2008

Verdicts and Settlements:

• Marc Beck v. FM Global, et al, Case No. 11VS184780C, Fulton State Court, Atlanta, Georgia, was settled in December 2011 for a confidential amount.  A boiler service technician sustained severe head, brain and facial injuries in a boiler explosion at a poultry plant in Gainesville, Georgia on January 14, 2008,   The plaintiff was an employee of a boiler service company who was sent to switch fuel supply for the boiler from gas over to fuel oil.  The boiler supplied steam for the plant, and they wanted to maintain pressure while the change over to oil took place.  Investigation of the explosion by the Georgia Department of Labor determined that the oil supply and return lines had been reversed, causing an excessive accumulation of fuel in the hot boiler as Mr. Beck attempted to fire the burner on oil.  The burner had not been fired on oil since a new boiler was installed two years before.  Plaintiff contended that the lines had been reversed when the new boiler was installed by another boiler service company, and that the manufacturer of the burner had supplied a defective manifold making it possible to inadvertently reverse the lines at the point of attachment to the burner.  The boiler inspection company which had last inspected the boiler prior to the explosion was also named as a defendant. , 2011
• Jury Verdict of $784,676.65 in Fire Loss case against Nationwide Insurance Company in the Circuit Court of Hamilton County, Tennessee in a six day trial that was successfully concluded on November 9, 2011, O'Neal v. Nationwide. The fire originated in a Christmas tree that Mrs. O'Neal had just put up the night before the fire in December 2009. Nationwide refused to pay, contending that a family member had intentionally set the house on fire. The jury concluded otherwise as Plaintiff's expert had found a melted plug blade in an electrical receptacle adjacent to the tree that Nationwide's expert had missed.  The evidence suggested an electrical origin due to a short or arcing at the receptacle.  The verdict included a bad faith penalty of 18%., 2011
• Currie v. Farmer, Case 08 CV 7097, Walker State Court, LaFayette, Georgia:  Jury verdict totaling $792,500, on March 11, 2010, for a 39 year-old self-employed roofer/sheet metal fabricator injured in a bad wreck two years previously. On a Sunday afternoon the plaintiff had taken his Harley motorcycle out for a ride over to his mother’s house. As he cruised along a rural roadway near Chickamauga, Georgia at a safe speed, a Buick Skylark, driven by an 88 year-old man, suddenly turned left directly in front of him. The impact shattered the plaintiff’s left ankle. The orthopedic trauma surgeon was able to use steel plates and screws to put the bimalleolar ankle fracture dislocation back together, but the plaintiff was left with a painful arthritic ankle with limited mobility.  The jury awarded $50,000 for medical expenses, $37,500 for lost earnings to date, $379,000 for future lost earnings, $20,000 for pain and suffering to date, plus $306,000 for future pain and suffering.  The biggest challenge we faced was overcoming sympathy for the defendant, who appeared in court in a wheelchair, after defense counsel made a big show of the fact that the defendant was ill.  The trial judge prohibited further appeals to sympathy and the jury took seriously our admonitions not to let “outside reasons” influence their determination of the proper amounts of money required to balance out the harms and losses the plaintiff suffered.  Justice was served., 2010
• Mr. Hamilton has obtained numerous seven figure settlements for severely injured clients and their families

Representative Clients:

• Allstate Insurance Co. v. Baugh, 173 Ga. App. 615, 1985
• Cumbie v. Cumbie, 146 Ga. App. 704, 1978
• Tucker v. Mappin, 149 Ga. App. 847, 1979
• Cooper v. Mason, 155 Ga. App. 793, 1979
• Middlebrooks v. Lonas, 246 Ga. 720, 1980
• Wallace v. Yarbrough, 155 Ga. App. 184, 1980
• Walkley v. Dukes, 175 Ga. App. 820, 1985
• Goforth v. Wigley, 178 Ga. App. 558, 1986
• Mathis v. Bowater, Inc. 985 F.2d 277, 6th Cir. 1993
• City of Dalton v. Gene Rogers Construction, 223 Ga. App. 819, 1996
• North Georgia Electric Membership Corp. v. Webb, 246 Ga. App. 316, 2000
• The Hospital Authority of Gwinnett County v. Rapson, 283 Ga. App. 297, 2007
• Denton v. Con-way Southern Express, 261 Ga. 41, 1991

Other Outstanding Achievements:

• Served as lead counsel in Denton v. Conway Southern Express, 261 Ga. 41 (1991), in which the Georgia Supreme Court declared key portions of the Tort Reform Act of 1987 to be unconstitutional.  As a result, the traditional collateral source rule in personal injury cases was reinstated in Georgia, so that evidence of "collateral sources" of payment or benefit are not to be considered by the jury in reaching its verdict.  Collateral sources include such things as major medical insurance, disability insurance, Social Security benefits, workers compensation benefits, and so forth., 1991

Educational Background:

• Vanderbilt University, B.A., 1973