News Article

ATLANTA—Womble Carlyle attorney William M. Ragland, Jr. (Bill) will be honored with the 2013 Atlanta Bar Association Leadership Award.  Ragland will be presented with  the award at a February 20 luncheon at the Piedmont Driving Club, 1215 Piedmont Avenue in Atlanta.

 

The Leadership Award is the highest award bestowed by the Atlanta Bar Association. It is “Presented to members who inspire by their example, challenge by their deeds, and remind us all of our debt to our profession and our community.”

 

Previous winners of the Atlanta Bar Association Leadership Award include three Chief Justices of the Georgia Supreme Court, two Georgia Attorneys General, former U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell, former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes, former U.S. Senator David Gambrell, and numerous federal and state court judges. The Leadership Award has been given annually since 1989.

 

Ragland has been active as a bar leader for more than 20 years. In 2004 and 2005, Ragland served as President of the Atlanta Bar Association. He recently completed a two-year term as President of the Atlanta Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Atlanta Bar Association. In that role, he chaired the foundation’s 25^th Anniversary Fundraising Campaign, which exceeded its goals by nearly 50 percent. The Atlanta Bar Foundation supports the Atlanta Bar’s charitable projects that promote youth education and internships, public understanding of the law and equal access to justice.

 

Ragland is the also the co-founder and past Co-Chair of the Intellectual Property Section of the Atlanta Bar Association and past Chair of its Litigation Section, the association’s largest section. He currently serves on the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Georgia and the Next Generation Courts Commission. Ragland’s leadership also includes numerous civic and community organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution and Atlanta Youth Academy. With 19 museums, and 9 scientific research centers and the National Zoo, the Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum and research complex. Since 2006, Ragland has served as a member of the Smithsonian National Board and until 2012 as a member of the board’s Executive Committee. He also chaired the board’s Smithsonian Across America Committee, promoting national outreach, and the National Board’s Broadening Access and Audiences Committee. His responsibilities include serving as an ambassador for the Smithsonian in the Southeast. Currently, Ragland chairs the Smithsonian National Board’s Annual Giving Campaign.

 

Atlanta Youth Academy is a pre-K through 8^th grade Christian school that stresses academic, character and leadership development for inner city children from low income families. Since 2006, Ragland has served as a member of the board of trustees of the foundation providing financial support for Atlanta Youth Academy. Ragland is Vice President for Governance and Leadership.

Ragland is among Womble Carlyle’s most experienced lead litigators and trial lawyers, with particular experience in intellectual property and business litigation. He has litigated more than 50 patent infringement and other patent-related cases in his 27-year career. He also has substantial experience litigating a wide variety of other types of business disputes, including those involving commercial contracts, partnerships and closely held companies, product liability, insurance coverage, defamation and real estate matters.

 

In 2009 and 2010, Ragland was named as one of the world’s top 250 intellectual property strategists in the world by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) magazine. He has also been recognized as a top business litigation and intellectual property attorney by Chambers USA and Best Lawyers in America, and as one of the Top 100 attorneys in Georgia by Atlanta magazine and Georgia Super Lawyers. Ragland is based in Womble Carlyle’s Atlanta office.

 

For information regarding registration to attend the Atlanta Bar Association’s February 20, 2013 Leadership Award Luncheon, please contact Mariana Pannell at mpannell@atlantabar.org or (404) 537-4930 or click here for a registration form:

 

About Womble Carlyle

Womble Carlyle is a full-service business law firm with a focus on innovative solutions to client needs. The firm supports the Association of Corporate Counsel in the ACC Value Challenge, which seeks to better align legal services with the needs of corporate clients.

The firm serves clients nationally and globally with more than 550 attorneys in fourteen offices: Atlanta; Charleston, Columbia and Greenville, S.C.; Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Research Triangle Park, and Winston-Salem, N.C.; Silicon Valley, Calif., Washington, D.C.; Tysons Corner, Va.; Baltimore; and Wilmington, Del.

In the community, the firm is the first law firm to receive the Thurgood Marshall College Fund Corporate Leadership Award as well as the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Freedom Award.

 

 

The Atlanta Bar Association is the largest voluntary bar association in the Southeast with approximately 6,000 members in the 12 counties of metro Atlanta (Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, Paulding, Rockdale). The mission of the Atlanta Bar Association is to promote professionalism and the fair administration of justice in our community and to provide programs and benefits which serve our diverse membership. Contact Terri Beck, Executive Director, at (404)832-6206 or dosteen@atlantabar.org for additional information.

 

(l-r): S. Wade Malone of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, Elizabeth A. (Liz) Price of Alston & Bird LLP (center) and Bill Ragland