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ATLANTA | VOLUME 6 ISSUE 3<br />
www.atlantaattorneymagazine.com<br />
MAGAZINE<br />
EDWARD D. BUCKLEY<br />
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER OF THE MONTH<br />
2 | www.atlantaattorneymagazine.com
ATTORNEYS<br />
TO WATCH<br />
MAGAZINE<br />
IN 2017<br />
SERIES<br />
L-R Nicholas Smith, Andrew Beal, Ed Buckley, Rachel Berlin, Brian J. Sutherland<br />
BUCKLEY BEAL, LLP<br />
The Go to Plaintiff’s Law Firm<br />
By Jan Jaben-Eilon<br />
Prominent on Edward D. Buckley’s office wall, along with his<br />
Emory University School of Law diploma, is a photograph<br />
of Robert F. Kennedy, a sketch of Albert Einstein and a small<br />
drawing of the late John Sirica, Chief Judge for the United<br />
States District Court in the District of Columbia who presided over<br />
the Watergate trial. The drawing was sketched by John Ehrlichman in<br />
his Watergate trial notebook. The former adviser to President Richard<br />
Nixon subsequently went to prison for conspiracy, obstruction of<br />
justice and perjury.<br />
Not everyone knows that Ehrlichman moved to Atlanta after he<br />
was released from prison. Years later, he was working for a company<br />
in a non-lawyer position. He hired Buckley to represent him in an age<br />
discrimination case after he was fired. The case was settled outside<br />
the court. Ehrlichman was happy with the result and gifted the sketch<br />
to Buckley.<br />
As far as Buckley - now managing partner at Buckley Beal - is concerned,<br />
Ehrlichman was just one of the many interesting clients he has<br />
represented over his years as an attorney specializing in employment<br />
and civil rights law. “I’ve represented a number of news personalities,<br />
war correspondents, as well as a lot of executives about contracts<br />
and separations. I am never, ever bored,” says the Atlanta native who<br />
has been ranked as one of “America’s leading labor & employment<br />
lawyers” by Chambers and Partners, as a “SuperLawyer” by Atlanta<br />
Magazine and as a member of Georgia’s “Legal Elite” for several years<br />
by Georgia Trend Magazine.<br />
Buckley attributes his choice of careers to being “good at reading,<br />
writing and running my mouth – all things lawyers need,” he laughs.<br />
14 | www.atlantaattorneymagazine.com<br />
Photo by Jeremy Adamo<br />
But he says he fell into employment law six years into his practice, after<br />
he faced off against a highly skilled plaintiff ’s attorney who later became<br />
a U.S. District Court Judge. After their case was settled, the lawyer<br />
referred plaintiff cases to him, which he found that he preferred.<br />
“I like representing individuals and helping them vindicate their<br />
rights. It’s more interesting than representing companies. I like representing<br />
the underdog, people who feel voiceless. Companies generally<br />
have a voice,” he explains. “I have represented steelworkers, hotel<br />
laundry workers, dock workers. We run the gamut. One time, I represented<br />
a restaurant worker and after I helped him, I thought this<br />
guy was going to wring my hand off at my shoulder. Most people I<br />
represent aren’t famous celebrities.”<br />
Currently, he’s representing an assistant principal in a religious<br />
discrimination case against a Cobb County School district and<br />
Asian-American, Latino, and Black voters in Gwinnett County in a<br />
voting rights case. “I have a low threshold for fun. I have fun at work.<br />
I work with interesting, smart people.”<br />
One of those people is Andrew Beal, with whom he has been<br />
friends since either the third or fourth grade, depending on which<br />
one you ask. Their firms merged in July 2015, with Beal bringing his<br />
business litigation practice to the firm. “It’s good to be friends with<br />
your law partner,” says Buckley. Beal represents business owners and<br />
shareholders in a myriad of business situations, including breach<br />
of contract, buying and selling of businesses, contract disputes and<br />
mergers and acquisitions. Recently, the firm launched its mediation<br />
practice under the leadership of partner Nicholas P. Smith. Buckley<br />
says that the firm may add other areas of practice in the future. “But
we won’t become a mega-firm. I know everyone’s name here and I want it to<br />
stay that way.”<br />
Indeed, he peppers his conversations about his law practice, and his life,<br />
with the names of his junior partners, associates and staff. He explains that<br />
when he is hiring for his firm, he looks at “whether this person is someone<br />
I’d like to spend a lot of time with, someone who could potentially become a<br />
partner. They have to be good writers and I ask whether they are a person I<br />
can see carrying a case to court, and do I feel they have the moral principles<br />
I want our firm to reflect. Can I trust their word?”<br />
Notably, when asked what characteristic is most important for an attorney<br />
to possess, he responds, simply, “Credibility. It’s very important for a lawyer<br />
to be truthful. You have to be credible with the courts and opposing counsel.<br />
If your reputation is for shading the truth, then people won’t believe you.<br />
Judges know which lawyers they can trust.”<br />
It’s also essential for attorneys to contribute to their communities, Buckley<br />
stresses. “You need to give back if you are going to be a lawyer. You will be<br />
working in a community and should be doing things for free sometimes. Not<br />
everyone can afford an attorney.” He suggests that attorneys find their “pro<br />
bono sweet spot” that will excite them. “The worse thing is to be a slave to<br />
billable hours. Then you just become a bean counter.”<br />
Buckley discovered the “sweet spot” that whetted his appetite is water.<br />
Winner of the IEEE Gold Humanitarian and Pace Award in 2009, named<br />
as an Ambassador for the Poor by nonprofit Food for the Poor in 2014 and<br />
winner of the 11 Alive Community Service Award in 2015, Buckley is the<br />
founder of the non-profit water charity, Water Life Hope, which helps people<br />
in the Caribbean gain access to clean drinking water. Combining fundraising<br />
and his own money, he has helped raise more than $1 million to build<br />
more than 330 wells and provide more than one-half million people with<br />
drinking water. “We’re trying to install water systems so kids can grow up<br />
healthy,” he says.<br />
“I started in Jamaica and Honduras, but then I talked to relief workers and<br />
asked, what is the most economically disadvantaged country in this hemisphere.<br />
Haiti has a combination of bad climate, harsh geography and bad<br />
politics. I believe that water is a cornerstone human right,” explains Buckley.<br />
The charity has a low overhead both because it works with an existing NGO<br />
(non-governmental organization) and because it operates out of his law firm.<br />
Many of his colleagues travel to Haiti and work with him there.<br />
Fighting for the underdog comes naturally to Buckley. “My parents were<br />
involved in the labor movement,” he says. “My dad, Ferdinand Buckley, frequently<br />
worked as a civil rights attorney. He once resigned from an attorneys’<br />
organization because they didn’t allow membership to Maynard Jackson<br />
(who later became Atlanta mayor) and William Alexander (later civil rights<br />
attorney, judge and Georgia legislator). Our dinner table was a platform for<br />
political conversations. I rode with my dad and passed out flyers in support<br />
of Andy Young for Congress. When I was run off of porches, he told me to<br />
just go out and distribute more flyers. My mother was also involved in human<br />
rights and when my parents were well into their seventies, they were arrested<br />
for marching against the School of the Americas in Columbus, Georgia.”<br />
Others who inspired Buckley along the way were English and political science<br />
high school teachers who insisted he learn how to write. An English-literature<br />
graduate, Buckley is a voracious reader. “I read until I can’t keep my<br />
eyes open.” He also just finished writing a novel.<br />
Buckley cites attorney John David Jones as another important mentor in<br />
his life. “He was the opposite of me politically, but he was a great story-teller.<br />
He would talk to juries as if he were their grandfather. I feel like I’m a product<br />
of some wonderful people, many of who are around me now,” adds Buckley,<br />
who obviously still learns from and thrives from people surrounding him.<br />
“We’re all a work in progress.” Introspectively, he adds: “I’m late everywhere<br />
I go because I enjoy wherever I am!”<br />
AT A GLANCE<br />
Founding Partner, Buckley Beal, LLP<br />
Promenade, Suite 900, 1230 Peachtree Street NE<br />
Atlanta, GA 30309<br />
Phone: (404) 781-1100<br />
www.buckleybeal.com<br />
Firm Composition<br />
• Senior/Managing Partners: Ed Buckley<br />
and Andrew Beal<br />
• Junior Partners: Brian Sutherland, Nicholas Smith<br />
and Rachel Berlin<br />
• Associates: Thomas J. Mew IV, T. Brian Green,<br />
Pamela Palmer, Amy Cheng, Isaac Raisner<br />
• Of Counsel: Michael Kramer<br />
• Staff: Fatisha Martinez, Glenda Puckett, Greg Lash,<br />
Jemetria Dudley, Karen Lucarelli, Linda Larson,<br />
Michael Glosup, Pam Rymin, Saida Latigue and<br />
Steve Henricksen<br />
Practice Areas:<br />
Employment and Business Law<br />
Community/Civic Involvement:<br />
For the last twelve years, Ed has been involved in raising<br />
funds and coordinating projects with NGOs to put<br />
potable water systems in place in various locations<br />
in the Caribbean including Haiti, Jamaica, Honduras<br />
and Nicaragua. To date, he has raised over $1,000,000,<br />
including, in part, fees he has earned in employment and<br />
civil rights cases. His non-profit, Water-Life-Hope, Inc.,<br />
has built water systems that serve over 450,000 people.<br />
Presently, many of those systems are serving people<br />
displaced by the earthquake and hurricane in Haiti.<br />
Pro-Bono Activities:<br />
Approx. 2-3 pro-bono cases/year<br />
Professional Affliations and Honors<br />
• IEEE Gold Humanitarian and Pace Award (2009)<br />
• Atlanta Bar Association Professionalism Award (2009)<br />
• Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Rating<br />
of “AV” Preeminent<br />
• 11 Alive Community Service Award (2015)<br />
• Food for the Poor: Ambassador for the Poor<br />
Award (2014)<br />
• Georgia Super Lawyer (20<strong>05</strong> through 2017)<br />
• Leadership Atlanta Class of 2013<br />
Professional Memberships<br />
• State Bar of Georgia (Labor and Employment Section)<br />
• Atlanta Bar Association (Labor and Employment<br />
Section; Past Chair, Secretary, Treasurer)<br />
• Georgia Affiliate of the National Employment Lawyers<br />
Association (Past Chair, Secretary, Treasurer)<br />
• National Employment Lawyers Association<br />
• American Bar Association (Labor and Employment<br />
Section)<br />
• Federal Bar Association<br />
(Labor and Employment Section)<br />
• Fellow of the College of Labor and<br />
Employment Lawyers<br />
• Georgia Trial Lawyers Association<br />
VOL. 6 ISSUE 3 ATLANTA ATTORNEY MAGAZINE | 15