Law Commons^™

Complicated Mercy: Compensating The Wrongfully Convicted In Georgia, Elizabeth O'Roark

Georgia Law Review

An exoneree’s story does not end when they walk out of prison and back into society. After spending years in prison for a crime they did not commit, the exoneree must rebuild a life with years of lost income, little credit, and no retirement. Georgia is one of the few states that does not have a statute setting out how to fairly and efficiently compensate its exonerees. Exonerees must instead ask state representatives to present a resolution to the General Assembly. If the resolution passes through both chambers of the legislature, then the exoneree can receive some compensation for the …

Boom Or Bust: Ensuring The Georgia State-Wide Business Court Fulfills Its Constitutional Promise, Roya Naghepour

Georgia Law Review

The United States judiciary includes specialized court systems within its baseline civil and criminal justice structure that provide more efficient and expert adjudication in a wide variety of areas. Since the creation of the Delaware Court of Chancery in 1792, many states have established specialized business courts with jurisdiction over commercial and corporate disputes. Today, many states have business court models, all choosing to employ some version of a specialized forum for corporate and commercial issues for the sake of judicial efficiency. The Georgia State-wide Business Court was established in 2019 with limited jurisdiction over narrow categories of commercial disputes. …

Socially Distant Signing: Why Georgia Should Adopt Remote Will Execution In The Post-Covid World, Jessie Daniel Rankin

Georgia Law Review

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and other state governors issued emergency executive orders authorizing the attestation and execution of wills, trusts, and other testamentary documents through the use of audio-video technology. Most states have traditionally required that such testamentary documents be signed in the physical presence of two or more witnesses to be valid. Georgia’s executive order permits these witnesses to instead observe the signing via video-conferencing software, alleviating the requirement that the witnesses be physically present with the testator. This authorization, however, only exists through this executive order and could lapse or be …

Georgia Legal Research, Amy Taylor

Books

This open source textbook authored by Amy Taylor was designed to provide University of Georgia School of Law students with a comprehensive guide to Georgia legal research. Using this text in combination with appropriate assignments, student objectives include the ability to select, evaluate, and use appropriate legal research tools with an emphasis on cost-effective research and proficiency in the following topics:

• Developing an efficient and cost effective research strategy
• Advanced searching skills in legal research databases
• Case law, including docket research, court rules, and verdicts & settlements
• Statutory law, including legislative materials and legislative history
• Administrative regulations, rules, and related …

Puppies, Puppies, Puppies: Why Georgia Should “Adopt” A Progressive Puppy Lemon Law And Engage In Much-Needed Statutory Reform, Jonathan T. Tortorici

Georgia Law Review

The Georgia Animal Protection Act—a set of animal
protection laws that has remained unchanged for nearly two
decades—was passed to promote animal welfare across the
state. Although the Act was progressive at its inception, its
failure to curb the atrocious conditions created by puppy mills
has become increasingly apparent, resulting in serious
consequences for both consumers and dogs. Georgia must
amend its animal protection laws to shift the costs of puppy
mills to where they belong: on pet sellers. Among other
innovative solutions to this problem, many states have enacted
“puppy lemon laws” that generally provide pet purchasers with
the …

Cook's Field Guide To Prosecution In Georgia, Alan A. Cook

Books

In this practical guidebook former district attorney and director of the University of Georgia's School of Law Prosecutorial Justice Program Alan Cook shares his personal wisdom and advice gathered from his decades of experience into a single volume. The handbook includes introductions to each chapter topic, plus both quick and detailed reference sections on all aspects of criminal law and procedure. It also includes useful appendices with step-by-step practice guides for how to perform specific prosecutorial tasks (such as how to take a guilty plea). Law student testimonies from now seasoned attorneys at the start of the book indicate the …

How Devolved Is Too Devolved?: A Comparative Analysis Examining The Allocation Of Power Between State And Local Government Through The Lens Of The Confederate Monument Controversy, W. Davis Riddle

Georgia Law Review

At various critical junctures in our nation’s history, lawmakers have struggled to strike the proper balance between centralization and delegation of authority. Recently, the debate over whether to remove Confederate monuments has again brought to the fore this centuries-old struggle. Beginning in 2000, state legislatures throughout the South enacted statutes primarily designed to protect Civil War monuments, which in the South predominantly pay tribute to the Confederate cause. Recent attempts by Southern localities to remove Confederate monuments have revealed the inadequacy of these recently-enacted statutes. Virtually every state legislature that has successfully passed a statute on the topic has produced …

The Elephant Not In The Room: Apportionment To Nonparties In Georgia, Michael K. Newman

Georgia Law Review

Apportionment to nonparties generally concerns defendants alleging that certain nonparties are also at fault for the plaintiffs harm. A defendant's successful allocation of fault to a nonparty results in the defendant shedding a portion of their liability toward the plaintiff. If joint and several liability has been abolished, then this means that the plaintiff will collect less damages from the named defendant. This Note addresses how current practice in Georgia allows the defendant to do this with very little effort. Specifically, this Note takes issue with a recent Georgia Court of Appeals decision, Double View Ventures, LLC v. Polite, 757 …

Laissez Fair:The Case For Alternative Litigation Funding And Assignment Of Lawsuit Proceeds In Georgia, David T. Adams

Georgia Law Review

This Note discusses the value of alternative litigation funding (ALF) and the legal challenges affecting the ALF industry in Georgia. More specifically, it identifies a way to maximize ALF's benefits for plaintiffs with personal tort and employment discrimination claims. Tort victims who are rendered incapable of working, and employees who have lost jobs because of workplace discrimination or retaliation,face immediate financial burdens-they may be unable to afford food, housing, health care, transportation, and other necessities. This economic pressure often forces plaintiffs to settle quickly for less than the value of the harm inflicted. But ALF companies offer a workable solution …

Skimming From The 2%: The Status Of Georgia's Restrictions On Shareholder Access To Corporate Information, Ruari J. O'Sullivan

Georgia Law Review

The Georgia Court of Appeals, in Mannato v. SunTrust
Banks, Inc., held that O.C.G.A. § 14-2-1602 abrogated all
common law rights to inspect corporate records. As a
result, shareholders in Georgia owning less than 2% of a
corporation'soutstandingshares suddenly lost the right to
petition a court to grant access to a corporation's books
and records. This Note argues that the Mannato decision
was incorrect. The Georgia Court of Appeals failed to
notice the significant procedural differences that existed
between the statutory and common law right of inspection
and erroneously applied Georgia's established law of
statutory abrogation. The court also brushed …

The Chevron Two-Step In Georgia's Administrative Law, David E. Shipley

Georgia Law Review

Like federal and state administrative agencies
throughout the nation, Georgia's many boards,
commissions and authorities make policy when they apply
their governing statutes in promulgating regulations and
in ruling on specific matters like granting or denying an
application for a permit or determining the residency of a
candidate for public office. Sometimes governing statutes
are clear, but sometimes there is ambiguity. When there is
ambiguity in the governing statute, an agency must
interpret that legislation when it promulgates regulations
or decides a particular contested matter. This Article asks
and answers the fundamental question of what deference,
if any, must a …

Gober's Georgia Form Book And Procedure, A Collection Of Legal Forms With Annotations From The Reports Of The Supreme Court And The Court Of Appeals Of Georgia On Questions Relating To Forms And Procedure; Prepared For The Use Of The Judiciary, The Bar, The Officers Of Court, And Business Me, George Fletcher Gober

Historical Treatises

Excerpt from the preface:

The work of preparing this volume has developed out of all proportion to what I anticipated in the outset. The great trouble under our system is that there are so many things that are not fixed and determined. Our system of pleading provides that a party must plainly, fully and distinctly set forth his cause of action, and this leaves the form to be passed upon under the discretion of about one hundred trial judges in the City and Superior Courts, and this discretion, in many instances, is controlled by individual and particular ideas. For this …

A Manual On Land Registration, Arthur Gray Powell

Historical Treatises

Excerpt from the preface:

I decided that my labors would prove most useful if I attempted to write a practical, rather than a learned treatise on the subject. While the subject is one that might bear much fruit under learned treatment, still what the present moment most demands is a practical handbook which will inform the profession and the officers who are to administer the law what to do and how to do it, when a landowner comes seeking to register his land.

There has been no effort at style, except that I have striven to state matters in a …

The Law Of Personal Injuries And Incidentally Damage To Property By Railway-Trains, Based On The Statutes And Decisions Of The Supreme Court Of The State Of Georgia, John L. Hopkins

Historical Treatises

From the front matter:

Testimonials From the Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of Georgia

Atlanta, May 22, 1902.

We have given the book prepared by Hon. John L. Hopkins, entitled "The Law of Personal Injuries," etc., a sufficient examination to enable us to say, without hesitation, that it is a work of great merit and utility. It will surely save the hard-worked judge and busy lawyer much time and labor by making the decisions of this court, bearing on the subjects treated, readily accessible in available form. The distinguished author's wel1 - executed plan of grouping …

The Georgia Form Book, Or, A Collection Of Legal Forms Under Georgia Law : Designed To Aid Attorneys-At-Law, Judges, Ordinaries, Clerks, Coroners, Sheriffs, Justices Of The Peace, Constables, Road Commissioners, Etc, Etc., As Well As Business Men In General, Silman & Thompson

Historical Treatises

Excerpt from the preface:

Testimonials.

Atlanta, Ga., September 26th, 1881.

Under special employment for the purpose, by Messrs. Silman & Thompson, I have carefully examined the collection of legal forms which they have prepared. As a result of the examination, I can and do recommend these Forms, each and all, as safe and sufficient. They are calculated to serve the wants, not only of attorneys at law, Ordinaries, County Commissioners, Clerks, Sheriffs, Coroners, Justices of the Peace, and others engaged in administering the law or executing its process, but, also, in some degree, of business men in general, such as …