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ON THE RISE
pastpicks
Our staff has chosen 101 upand-coming young lawyers
since 2002. Who were the hits?
The misses? And where are
they now? Page 14.
An incisivemedia publication
Twelve to watch
The Daily Report’s annual picks of lawyers under 40 whose stars are rising
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photos by Zachary D. Porter/Daily Report
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on the rise•daily report monday, august 18, 2008
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12 young lawyers to watch
Nominated by our readers; hand-picked by our editorial staff
Some lawyers come in and pound the podium,
observes Dougherty County Superior Court
Judge Loring A. Gray Jr. “Then there are the
ones who pound the books,” Gray says. “And
you can always tell who they are.”
Preparation is a recurrent theme in
conversation with those who have worked
with—or against—R. Adams “Adam” Malone,
who at 35 has earned a name as one of the
sharpest medical malpractice and personal
injury plaintiffs’ lawyers in Atlanta, a reputation
burnished with last year’s record-shattering
$24.5 million judgment against a Dougherty
hospital in the case of a high-school athlete who
lost a leg after being injured in a fall.
“Adam seems, to me, to be sort of a lawyer
from another era,” says Gray, describing
an earnest, infinitely polite young man he
first knew as a youth in Albany, N.Y., where
Malone’s father, famed med-mal practitioner
Thomas W. “Tommy” Malone, honed his
own legal skills. Like Adam, Tommy Malone
inherited the practice from his own father—also
named Rosser Adams Malone—who eventually
became a state court judge.
Jack J. Slover Jr., the lead defense lawyer in
the Dougherty case, concurs with the judge’s
praise in somewhat grittier terms.
“Adam Malone kicked my ass in Dougherty
County,” Slover says good-naturedly of the young
man he describes as “a real gentleman” and
“consummate trial lawyer.”
Malone declares himself “honored” by such
praise, and says he learned early on that in law,
particularly in personal injury or med-mal cases,
the odds often are intimidating.
“You may be right out of law school, and
you’re facing a team of experienced lawyers
and experts,” he says. “The only way to level the
playing field is to out-prepare them.”
Malone began putting that work ethic to use
well before earning his law degree. Recalling
himself as a good, if indifferent, scholar prior
to starting law school—as an undergraduate at
North Georgia College and State University
military college in Dahlonega, he admits, “I
misbehaved plenty”—it was upon enrollment at
John Marshall Law School that he experienced
something of an epiphany.
“I had always wanted to be a lawyer,” he says,
and “once I started law school, I remember
thinking, ‘OK, you’re doing what you’ve always
wanted to do.’ I decided to set a goal of doing the
best I can every day, and if I failed, it would be
my fault.”
Malone says his penchant for unruliness
influenced his father’s decision not to fund his
education any more. He put himself through
law school working both at the law library and
as a waiter at Four Seasons, and attending
night classes. He served a year as an intern
under Georgia Court of Appeals Judge G.
Alan Blackburn then, under the Prosecuting
Attorneys’ Council of Georgia’s Third Year
Practice Program, Malone spent nearly a year
working in the office of the Clayton County district
attorney.
In 2000, he addressed his fellow John
M a r sh a l l st udent s a s va le d ic tor i a n .
Malone graduated with more than a degree from
the school; that’s where he met his future wife,
Barbara Berry, daughter of famed Marietta defense
attorney Jimmy D. Berry.
Now the mother of his three girls, he calls her
“my best friend.”
Malone acknowledges that his father casts a
long shadow and says he entered the firm eager
to prove himself. Although he and his father
have handled many cases together, Malone took
lead chair almost before hanging up his diploma,
taking the case of a 9-year-old girl who suffered
two broken legs and scarring after being struck
by a pickup truck while she was attending an
after-school program.
The suit named as defendants the program’s
sponsors, Atlanta Affordable Housing Fund
Limited Partnership and Ledic Management
Group Inc.
“They offered $75,000 to settle before trial,”
he says, only to have a Fulton County State Court
jury award Shaatia J’nai Brown $760,000.
Malone confesses that, in his earlier days at
the firm, he may have tried to overcompensate
out of eagerness to show his father what he
could do and to prove to observers that he was
not simply riding the senior Malone’s coattails.
“I wanted to prove myself to him and because
of that I may have missed out on some things,”
he smiles. “In my eighth year of practice, it’s
amazing how much my dad has learned,” he
says, borrowing from Mark Twain. “And I think
he gets pleasure from teaching me,” he adds.
Adam Malone has become a legal powerhouse
in his own right, totting up more than $90 million
in awards and settlements in his short career. And
he says there should be no mistake that, while the
Malone name is his greatest legacy, he must earn
the cachet that goes with that name every day.
“People say, ‘Well, you stepped into a
great law practice. You’ll do well.’ They don’t
understand that we don’t have weekly clients,”
he says. “What I inherited was a good name; I
didn’t inherit a book of business.”
Tommy Malone says that the first few years of
having his son as part of the firm “were kind of
a struggle sometimes.”
“Adam and I are both very independent
thinkers, and it took awhile of us trying cases
on the rise profile:
R. Adams
“Adam” Malone
partner, personal injury
Malone Law
•Age: 35
•Law school: John Marshall, 2000
•Motivation: helping others and being of
service
•Last book read: “Wild at Heart:
Discovering A Life of Passion, Freedom,
and Adventure,” by John Eldredge
• Best advice received: “A man is no better
than his word.”
•As a kid he wanted to be: a trial lawyer
• Interesting fact: enjoys Muay Thai, a Thai
martial art also known as “the art of the
eight limbs”
• Best gift: his name
•Last vacation: Marsh Harbour, Bahamas,
in June
• Dream adventure: “To visit every island
in the Caribbean on a small boat with my
wife and children.”
• Success is: “To know, when I go to bed at
night, that I’ve done the best I can.”
together for him to realize his old dad knows
a few things, too,” he says. “But I have to say
it’s been sheer joy to practice law with him and
watch him grow.”
—Greg Land