Memorial services are planned for this week for Barry Phillips, who first joined the firm that became Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton in 1954 and was later its chairman. Phillips died Monday at the age of 82.

According to the firm, the family will receive friends at H.M. Patterson Spring Hill Chapel, on Wednesday, January 25th, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.  Funeral services will be held at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church on Thursday, January 26th, at 3 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP Scholarship Fund, in honor of Barry Phillips at the University of Georgia Law School, 120 Herty Dr, Athens, Ga. 30602, in care of the Development Office. Donations may also be made to the American Heart Association P.O. Box 840692 Dallas, Texas 75284-0692 or www.heart.org.

Online condolences may be made at H.M. Patterson & Son-Spring Hill Chapel.

A full obituary released by the firm is below: Read more »

Hamilton McWhorter Jr., a former state senator, Oglethorpe County attorney and 73-year veteran of the State Bar of Georgia, died this week in Atlanta. He was 98 years old.

McWhorter, known to his family as “Big Hamilton,” graduated from the University of Georgia in 1934 and the University of Georgia School of Law in 1936, according a news release today from the Georgia Senate Press Office. The State Bar of Georgia’s website said he joined the bar in 1938.

McWhorter practiced law in Lexington with his father until World War II, during which time he served in the Military Intelligence Service. Later, he was attorney for Oglethorpe County, held a seat on the Lexington City Council and was a state senator from 1961 to 1962.

McWhorter finished his career as Secretary of the Georgia Senate—a job he held for 25 years, from 1967 to 1992.

He died Oct. 18 at the Lenbrook Retirement Community. His graveside service will be Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Clark Cemetery in Lexington. In lieu of flowers, his family has asked that memorials be made to the University of Georgia Foundation.

A retired Cherokee Judicial Circuit Superior Court judge and his son, a trial lawyer in Alabama, died Monday within hours of each other.

Judge Jere Field White, who was also a former district attorney, died Oct. 3 on St. Simon’s Island. Later that day, his son, Jere Field White Jr., a founding partner at Lightfoot, Franklin & White, passed away after an illness at the age of 56.

The senior White was admitted to the bar in 1949 and graduated from Atlanta Law School. He retired from the bench a few years ago.

His son was born and raised in Cartersville, graduated from the University of Georgia and was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1980 after earning his law degree from Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. White Jr. helped found Lightfoot, Franklin & White in 1990, and made a career trying complex civil cases.

Services for White Jr. will be Wednesday in Birmingham, Ala., and services for White Sr. are scheduled for Thursday in Cartersville.

Cartersville Tribune obit for White Sr. is here: http://www.daily-tribune.com/view/full_story/15882203/article-Friends-remember-Judge-Jere-White?

The firm obit for White Jr. is here: http://www.lightfootlaw.com/news-events/index.cfm?ID=154

As the DeKalb County legal community remembers Judge Anne Workman, who died last week, veteran freelance reporter Ben Smith came upon a speech she gave in 2008 that gives a sense of what she was like.  Ben’s obituary of Judge Workman appears in Thursday’s Daily Report, which will be online later this afternoon.  (The story will be free on our web site.)

Here is the text of the speech:

A  Curmudgeon’s  View  from  the  Last  Century  Forward

By Chief Judge Anne Workman, Dekalb Superior Court

(Keynote Speaker for the DeKalb Bar Association Bench and Bar Dinner March 2008)

         When I was approached by Noah [Pines] and Mike [Hawkins] to speak tonight, I was told in no uncertain terms that this speaking opportunity was only being offered under the strict condition that the speech not last more than twenty minutes.  I tell you this to allay any fears or flashbacks that you may harbor about being kept here into the night.  I was somewhat surprised to be asked to speak as a reason to select me did not immediately come to mind and the topic was to be how the bar in DeKalb has evolved in the thirty five years that I have been a member.

           Upon reflection,  I realized that I must be  the oldest living woman  member of the DeKalb Bar. When I joined this organization in 1973, there were two women lawyers who were members -  Sara Frances McDonald and Margaret Farleigh  – both of whom  have  since passed away.  There are those here tonight who have been members of this bar longer than I, but they are all men.  The most striking evolution of this bar to which I have been witness is the sea change relative to the presence of and participation by women attorneys in the courtrooms and on the benches in our courthouse.  It is this transformation that is the most personal and directly known to me, because along with other women from those times, I have lived it.  And because I have lived it, I can speak to that journey. Read more »

U.S. District Senior Judge G. Ernest Tidwell

U.S. District Senior Judge G. Ernest Tidwell of Georgia’s Northern District bench in Atlanta died this morning, according to his son, Atlanta attorney Thomas G. Tidwell.

Judge Tidwell, an Atlanta native who was appointed to the federal bench by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, turned 80 on Aug. 1.  He served 32 years on the federal bench here, including a three-year stint as the district’s chief judge.

Tidwell took senior status in 1999.  Funeral services will be announced.

Cobb County state Rep. Bobby Franklin has died.

Few details were immediately available, but Cobb County police spokesman Mike Bowman confirmed to the Daily Report that Franklin was found in his home shortly before noon today. The death is “under investigation, but there were no signs of foul play,” Bowman said. Read more »

From the UGA School of Law website:

“Georgia Law regrets to announce the passing of Hosch Professor Anne Proffitt Dupre. This highly respected scholar, teacher, mentor and friend passed away June 22. A 1988 alumna of Georgia Law, she joined the law school faculty in 1994 and specialized in education law and contract law.”

David C. Baldus, whose landmark study of the Georgia criminal justice system provided the basis for a major, but unsuccessful, death penalty challenge, has died, the New York Times is reporting.

According to the paper, the Iowa law professor died on Monday at his Iowa City home. His 1986 study of more than 2,000 Georgia murder cases from the 1970s showed that defendants accused of killing white victims were more than four times more likely to receive the death sentence than those accused of killing black victims. Read more »

Criminal defense lawyer Mike Sheffield, who made headlines with two close races for the Court of Appeals of Georgia, has died at the age of 61.

Check back later today for more details. Read more »

Attorney Robert Jerome Lipshutz, the former White House counsel to President Jimmy Carter, died Saturday at an Atlanta hospice. He was 88.

As governor, Carter appointed Lipshutz as vice chairman of the board for Georgia’s Department of Human Resources and to a state compensation commission. Read more »