2010 Officers

The officers of the Gate City Bar include highly trained professionals with extensive experience and training in legal techniques, analysis, and real negotiations. Click to view our Past Presidents

SHUKURA L. INGRAM – PRESIDENT

Shukura L. Ingram is an Associate in the Litigation Section of Thomas Kennedy Sampson & Tompkins LLP. Her principal areas of practice include wrongful death, personal injury, medical malpractice, insurance defense, premises liability and contractual relations.

Shukura received her J.D. from Georgia State University College of Law in 1998 and her B.A. in English from Clark Atlanta University in 1995. While in law school, Shukura was President of the Association of Women Law Students, GSU representative for the American Bar Association, member of the Moot Court Board and a Kimberly Dawson-Blanton Scholarship Recipient. In the summer of 1996, Shukura completed a course in International Commercial Arbitration at JOHANNES-KEPLER UNIVERSITÄT in LINZ, AUSTRIA.

Shukura began her career as an Assistant Solicitor for the City Court of Atlanta where she first gained jury trial experience. After leaving the Solicitor’s Office, she joined the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, where she served for six years as an Assistant District Attorney. In 2003 she received the District Attorney’s Ahmed Dabarran Public Service award and was recognized by the City of Atlanta’s Neighborhood Planning Unit-K for her service as the District Attorney’s office liaison. During her tenure in the district attorney’s office, Shukura was lead trial counsel on various matters, most notably specializing in homicide and high-profile cases.

Shukura’s past service to Gate City includes serving as President-Elect (2009); Vice-President (2008) and Chair of the Annual Judicial Reception (2006-2009). Shukura volunteers for the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation by providing services to victims of domestic violence. She is also a member of the Atlanta Bar Association, Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys and the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers. She was appointed by Mayor Shirley Franklin to serve on the Atlanta Judicial Commission in 2005, is a board member of the Arthur Blank Family Youth YMCA and an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She has been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Georgia and the Georgia Court of Appeals.

Shukura has been recognized as a young lawyer “On The Rise” for 2007 by the Fulton County Daily Report.

CURTIS J. MARTIN, II - PRESIDENT-ELECT

Curtis J. Martin II is a partner with Mozley, Finlayson & Loggins LLP. Mr. Martin practices in the areas of commercial litigation, automobile and trucking litigation, product liability and premises liability.

Mr. Martin received his B.B.A. from Radford University. He received his Juris Doctor degree from Valparaiso University in 2003, after spending his final year as a visiting student at Georgia State University College of Law.

Mr. Martin has engaged in numerous pro bono and civic activities in his service to the community and the legal profession. These activities include providing pro bono legal representation on behalf of the victims of domestic violence and serving as a mentor and speaker to high school students through various non-profit organizations. Mr. Martin also serves on the Board of Directors of Horizons Atlanta, which is a non-profit organization designed to provide an academic enrichment program to public school children from economically disadvantaged families. He is a contributor to the Atlanta Business Journal, authoring a bi-monthly column focused on legal issues.

Mr. Martin serves as the President-Elect of the Gate City Bar Association and has served prior terms on the Gate City Bar Association Executive Board and Foundation Board. He is a member of the State Bar of Georgia, American Bar Association, Atlanta Bar Association and the Georgia Defense Lawyers Association.

In 2009, Mr. Martin was selected to the Who’s Who in Black Atlanta. He was also selected by the Atlanta Business Journal as one of Atlanta’s 40 On the Rise. In 2010, Super Lawyers magazine named Mr. Martin as a Rising Star marking him as a top Georgia lawyer under the age of 40.

RENEE Y. LITTLE- VICE PRESIDENT

Renee Y. Little is an associate with the civil litigation firm of Carlock Copeland Semler & Stair, LLP. Within the civil litigation arena, her practice includes commercial transportation, commercial litigation, premises liability and medical malpractice in State and Federal Court actions. A significant portion of her practice involves defending corporations and individuals in actions involving catastrophic injury and wrongful death.

Renee earned her Bachelor of Arts Degrees at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana in the areas of Political Science and English Compensation. She later earned her Master of Arts Degree in Criminal Justice at Clark Atlanta University, and her Juris Doctorate from the University of Georgia School of Law. She is a member of the State Bar of Georgia, and is currently Secretary of the Gate City Bar Association. Renee's professional and civic memberships also include the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys, Atlanta Bar Association and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She also served as a Barrister with the Joseph Henry Lumpkin American Inn of Court.

Akua D. Coppock is an Associate in the Litigation Section of Thomas Kennedy Sampson & Tompkins LLP. Her principal areas of practice include general civil litigation, insurance defense, medical malpractice, and premises liability.

Akua received her B.A. in Political Science, cum laude, from Spelman College in 1995. She received her J.D. from American University, Washington College of Law in Washington, D. C. in 2003. Akua has been admitted to practice before the Georgia State and Superior Courts and the Supreme Court of Georgia.

She is a member of the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys and an officer of the Gate City Bar Association. Akua was a prominent member of the Gate City Bar Paralegal Section where she was the Chair of the Pro Bono Committee for three years. In 2008, Akua received the Clarence R. Johnson, Jr. Founders Award for outstanding service as an outstanding Paralegal member of the Gate City Bar Association.

Akua has also worked with the Truancy Intervention Project of Georgia since March 2005 as a Guardian ad Litem, tutor and mentor. She serves on the Volunteer Service Committee and is a regular presenter at the Truancy Project trainings of new volunteers. She was a 2006 and 2007 nominee and in 2008 became the Glenda Hatchett Volunteer of the Year for outstanding service and dedication for the children and families of Fulton County, Georgia.

MEKA BRUMFIELD WARD- ASSISTANT SECRETARY

Meka B. Ward is a Staff Attorney on the Personnel and Human Resources Team in the Fulton County Attorney’s Office. In this role, Meka defends the County, departmental officials and employees in state and federal employment discrimination litigation, as well as advises and consults on day-to-day operational and administrative matters, including, but not limited to, reviewing contract for services, negotiating contracts, providing advice on personnel matters and drafting and interpreting ordinances, regulations and resolutions. Prior to joining the Fulton County Attorney’s Office, Meka served as an Assistant Solicitor for the City Court of Atlanta and as an Associate with the Chestney-Hawkins Law Firm where she specialized in DUI defense.

Meka received her Bachelor of Arts in English, magna cum laude, from Spelman College in 1994 and her Juris Doctor from the University of Miami School of Law in 1997. Meka has participated in numerous pro bono and community service activities and has been recognized as one of Georgia’s Rising Stars by Super Lawyers magazine.

Meka currently serves as Assistant Secretary of the Gate City Bar Association and has previously served as Secretary, Executive Board Member, and Hall of Fame Chair. A native of Atlanta, Meka is a member of various social and civic organizations including Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the Atlanta Bar Association and the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys.

LYNNETTE D. ESPY-TREASURER

Lynnette D. Espy joined Cozen O’Connor’s Atlanta office in March 2007 as an Associate in the General Litigation Department. She focuses her practice on commercial litigation. She has experience in litigating a wide variety of commercial matters, including matters pertaining to products liability.

Lynnette also has experience in litigating matters pertaining to the health, life, accident and disability insurance industry. She has litigated numerous coverage issues, including bad faith, punitive damages and deceptive trade practices claims. She has also defended insurance companies in various interpleader actions. Prior to joining the firm, she served as a judicial intern for Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears of the Supreme Court of Georgia.

Lynnette earned her undergraduate degree, cum laude, with honors in Economics, from Spelman College and her law degree from the University of Maryland. During law school, she was a Staff Member of The Business Lawyer as well as an Associate Articles Editor of the Journal of Business and Technology Law.

Lynnette is a member of the American Bar Association, the Atlanta Bar Association, the Atlanta Council of Younger Lawyers, and the Gate City Bar Association. She is also the Membership Chair for the Young Lawyers Division of the National Bar Association.

Lynnette is admitted to practice in Georgia.

WILLIE J. LOVETT, JR.- IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT

Willie J. Lovett, Jr. currently serves as the Director of the Fulton County Child Attorney’s Office. In that role, he manages the attorneys, investigators, social workers and administrative staff, ensuring that statutory mandates are met and the Kenny A. Consent Decree is followed. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Lovett served as Deputy County Attorney for the Fulton County Attorney’s Office. In that role, he managed all aspects of Fulton County’s litigation performed by staff attorneys and outside counsel. Fulton County’s litigation practice includes employment, catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, governmental contract, taxation, tax sales, tax assessment, zoning, land use, environmental, construction, constitutional, First Amendment, Section 1983, and bankruptcy matters.

He also provided day to day legal advice to the Judicial branch of Fulton County Government, which includes all Judges, the District Attorney’s Office, the Solicitor General’s Office, the Public Defender’s Office, the Clerk of Superior Court and the Clerk of State Court. Prior to joining the Fulton County Attorney’s Office, Mr. Lovett clerked for the Honorable Joseph W. Hatchett, former Chief Judge of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, served as an Assistant City Attorney for the City of Atlanta’s Law Department, and worked as an associate at several Atlanta law firms.

Mr. Lovett currently serves as President of the Gate City Bar Association, and has served as a member of the Gate City Bar Association Executive Board for the last five years. Mr. Lovett is a native of Savannah, Georgia, and is married to Seletha R. Butler, Esq.

HAROLD E. FRANKLIN - HISTORIAN

Harold E. Franklin, Jr. joined King & Spalding in 2000 and is a partner with the firm’s Tort and Environmental Law Practice Group, which was selected by The American Lawyer in 2004 as one of the top three in the country and by Chambers in 2005 and 2006 as one of the top six. His practice focuses on complex and high-stakes product liability litigation. Harold has served as counsel for a number of the country’s largest automotive, pharmaceutical, beverage, and package delivery companies and has been actively involved in a multitude of matters throughout the continental United States and abroad. In 2004, Harold was selected by General Motors Corporation to serve as in-house counsel for the corporation’s product litigation group. Harold has utilized his fluency in Spanish in his law practice in matters in Puerto Rico, Europe and South America.

Harold is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Membership in this preeminent group of lawyers is comprised of less than 1% of the lawyers in the nation. In addition, Harold was the 2006 recipient of the Alumni Achievement Award, presented by the Black Law Students’ Association at the Annual Bench and Bar Reception at the Georgia State University College of Law. Harold has been listed in Georgia Trend magazine’s Legal Elite as a leading lawyer in his practice area and also as a Georgia Super Lawyer.

Harold is a 1990 graduate of Emory University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Spanish. After Emory, Harold served as Vice President for an insurance brokerage firm specializing in group benefit plans for many of the nation’s leading insurance companies. Harold received his Juris Doctor from Georgia State University School of Law in 1999.

At King & Spalding, Harold has served on the Hiring Committee and on the firm’s Diversity Committee. In addition, Harold played a primary role in helping institute King & Spalding’s involvement in Mayor Shirley Franklin’s Mayor’s Youth Program, which provides scholarships and mentoring for underprivileged students to attend college.

In addition to his active practice, Harold has engaged in numerous pro bono and community service endeavors in his service to the community and bar, including providing pro bono legal representation to the community through the Truancy Intervention Project, which provides early positive intervention with children reported as truants, and the Dispossessory Project, an eviction defense program provided through the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation. He has also served on the Georgia chapter of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in connection with the non-partisan Election Protection coalition and has recently become a member of the National Board of the organization.

Harold is a member of the American Bar Association, the National Bar Association (serving on the Board of Governors and as the Director of Region 11), the American Bar Foundation, the State Bar of Georgia, the Atlanta Bar Association, the Defense Research Institute, the Lawyers’ Club of Atlanta, and serves on the Executive Board of the Georgia Diversity Program Committee (of the State Bar of Georgia).

During his tenure as President in 2007 of The Gate City Bar Association he founded the Gate City Justice Robert Benham Law Camp, the organization’s intensive institutional outreach program designed to foster and increase diversity in the legal profession by exposing local high school students to the study of the law and exposure to career opportunities in the legal profession. He has also served as chair of the Scholarship Committee of the Gate City Hall of Fame program. During his tenure as President, Gate City served as the official host of the most well attended National Bar Association Convention in the history of the organization.

Mr. Franklin and his wife, Cynthia, are the proud parents of three young children.

MEMBERS –AT- LARGE

TRACEE R. BENZO

Tracee R. Benzo is a litigation associate at Hamilton & Hasner, LLC. She currently practices in the areas of workers’ compensation and personal injury law.

Not only is Tracee committed to serving the Gate City Bar Association, she is on the Executive Board of The Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys, The New Lawyers Division of The Georgia Trial Lawyers Association and The Young Lawyers Leadership Academy (class of 2010).

Prior to law school, Tracee worked as a litigation paralegal after completing a leadership development program with Travelers & Citigroup in Alpharetta, Georgia. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Legal Studies and Speech and Communications from Clemson University in 2001 and her paralegal certification from Dekalb Technical College.

JADAWNYA C. BUTLER

JaDawnya C. Butler is a Solo-Practitioner with The Butler Law Group, LLC specializing in Criminal Defense and Family Law. She currently serves the Bar through The Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys as Vice President and as The Co-Chair of The State Bar’s Young Lawyers Division’s Women in the Profession Committee. She attended Spelman College where she earned a degree in both English and History. JaDawnya attended The University of Florida Levin College of Law where she earned the highest grades in several of her classes and was the speaker at her law school graduation. JaDawnya has clerked for Judge Phipps of the Georgia Court of Appeals, Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears of the Georgia Supreme Court and the oldest Black owned law firm in the Southeast- Thomas, Kennedy, Sampson & Patterson. She’s the recipient of The University of Florida Levin College of Law’s 2006 Outstanding Alumni award, a 2008 graduate of The Young Lawyers Division’s Leadership Academy, and a recent appointee to The Fulton County Board of Ethics.

THOMAS G. “WOODY” SAMPSON, II

Thomas G. Sampson, II, (“Woody”), is a partner with Thomas Kennedy Sampson & Patterson LLP, Georgia’s oldest minority-owned law firm. A trial lawyer, Woody regularly represents Fortune 500 companies, individuals and governmental entities in various types of complex legal matters. He has a wide variety of experience, having been involved in trying more than 100 cases in the civil and criminal arena.

Woody has worked as a plaintiff’s attorney, trying multi-million dollar personal injury cases, as well as a defense attorney, defending major corporations against multi-million dollar lawsuits. He has thirteen (13) years of experience in medical malpractice, personal injury and wrongful death, premises liability, consumer warranty, and other general civil litigation matters. Woody has tried cases for the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority, the Housing Authority of the City of Atlanta, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (“MARTA”), Ford Motor Company, State Farm Insurance, as well as others.

Woody is a graduate of Morehouse College and holds a Doctorate of Law degree from the University of Georgia. Woody is a member of the State Bar of Georgia, and is a past President of the Gate City Bar Association. He has formerly served as President-Elect, Vice-President, and member-at-large of the Gate City Bar Association. He has served as Board Chairman of the Southwest Coalition of Concerned Citizens. He is also a Board member of Planned Parenthood of Georgia, Inc. In 2007 Woody was inducted as a Charter Fellow in the Litigation Counsel of America. This trial honorary is by invitation and consists of less than one percent (1%) of trial lawyers in America. He has served as a Barrister of the Logan E. Bleckely, American Inn of Courts. Woody has served as an Examiner for the Georgia Bar Exam from 1999-2002. He is also a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. and Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, Inc.

L. CHRIS STEWART

L. Chris Stewart is a Partner in the personal injury department of Morgan & Morgan. Morgan & Morgan is arguably the nations largest Plaintiff’s firm with offices throughout the country. Chris focuses primarily on auto/trucking collision cases, wrongful death, and premises liability. Currently, Chris represents hundreds of injured clients, and has received multiple Plaintiffs' jury verdicts and settlements for millions of dollars in recovery for his clients.

Chris earned his undergraduate degree in Psychology from Xavier University (LA) where he also graduated with honors in English. He earned a Masters of Science in Public Health, with a specialty in Environmental Policy, from Tulane University's nationally renowned School of Public Health. He went on to obtain his Juris Doctorate from Howard University School of Law in Washington, DC. While in law school, Chris was Vice-President of the Student Bar Association, President of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and a member of Howard University School of Law's Moot Court Trial Advocacy Team, which won the American Bar Association's National Criminal Justice Trial Competition in 2005. Upon graduation from Howard University School of Law, Chris was rated as one of the best student trial attorneys in the country.

Chris was also selected as the "Outstanding Advocate" for this National Trial Competition, defeating schools such as Harvard, Stanford, and Georgetown. He has been featured in Jet Magazine, Diversity and the Bar Magazine, aol.com, and numerous other publications, and congratulated in the U.S. House of Representatives for their victory. Chris also traveled with famed actor Bill Cosby as a motivational speaker and was featured on ABC's Nightline and Dateline. He was also a finalist for Atlanta’s Power 30 under 30. Chris currently serves on the board for the Villages at Carver YMCA, tutors at Perkson Elementary School, and is a frequent speaker at inner city elementary schools.

SHOFAETIYAH WATSON

Shofaetiyah D. Watson (“Sho”) is the founder of The Watson Law Firm, LLC, based in Atlanta, GA. The firm’s practice areas are catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, and criminal defense.

Prior to founding his law practice, Sho was an associate with Edmond, Jones & Lindsay (now Edmond & Lindsay), a leading Plaintiff’s medical malpractice/personal injury firm.

In addition to his active involvement with GCBA, Sho is a member of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, and actively volunteers with the Fulton County Truancy Intervention Project.