Find Lawyers in Nashville, Tennessee for Commercial Litigation
Practice Area Overview
Litigation increasingly occurs in various venues, from state and federal courts to private arbitrations and administrative hearings. Proceedings can involve business-to-business disputes or any number of government agencies. Understanding the motivations and outlook of each of the litigation participants is important for determining weak points to exploit and strong points that will persuade the audience in question. During the past decade, commercial litigators have seen a dramatic uptick in multidistrict and inter-disciplinary litigation, making the stakes higher, the cases more complex, the parties more numerous and the discovery more complicated and unwieldy. Firms that are able to develop and implement a creative legal approach to each individual problem, efficiently focus on the key legal and factual issues, and master and manage the various aspects of these complex matters will be the busiest in the years to come.
In the current challenging economic climate, commercial litigators are under increasing client pressure to keep costs in check, which has both sides testing the efficacy of alternative fee arrangements and the scope of reasonable discovery. Whether the “death of the billable hour” is ultimately realized, the keys to a commercial litigator’s success will continue to be strong client relationships, thought leadership, practical management skills, deep experience, and personal commitment.
Mr. Abelow represents clients in both complex commercial litigation and bankruptcy, including contract claims, business torts, loan restructuring, lender liability, and guaranty disputes. Litigation issues often arise in a loan restructuring, such as a lender liability counterclaim, or a dispute over the terms of a guaranty, and Mike uses his litigation skills and knowledge of the litigation process to achieve cost-effective resolutions. Similarly, bankruptcy issues, including the ability to ...
Charles Barrett joined Neal & Harwell in September 2015. He works as a civil litigator in state and federal courts across the country. His practice focuses on personal injury cases, antitrust and consumer class actions, and False Claims Act claims, but he has also represented large multinational corporations in commercial disputes. Away from the office, Charles spends time with his wife, Elizabeth, and their five children. He also served on the board of directors of the Martha O’Bry...
Margaret L. Behm has earned the reputation as the go-to person in 45 years of representing clients and forging coalitions for change. After beginning her legal career in 1976 at Legal Services if Middle Tennessee, Inc., Behm and Marietta Shipley in 1980 founded Shipley and Behm, the city's first all-woman law firm. “Back then, women just weren’t taken seriously as business owners or lawyers,” Behm says. “I wanted to run my own business and demonstrate that women could ...
Brandon Bundren is a trial lawyer who represents both plaintiffs and defendants in state and federal courts in Tennessee and Texas. Brandon’s clients range from small businesses to numerous publicly traded companies. While Brandon handles a variety of complex commercial cases, his practice is focused primarily on intellectual property and competitive practices litigation, including non-compete, trade secrets, patent, trademark, copyright, and similar unfair competition matters. Brandon ...
Joshua L. Burgener, a partner in the firm’s Nashville office, focuses his practice on complex commercial and business litigation, employment disputes, class action litigation, and real estate litigation. Specifically, he specializes in trade secret and non-compete suits, contract claims, lease disputes, and business torts. In addition to his courtroom practice, Josh also advises clients on litigation assessment and avoidance. He has been recognized by Super Lawyers® as a “Risi...
Webb Campbell’s business litigation practice focuses on representing companies and individuals in shareholder and corporate governance lawsuits, insurance coverage disputes, breach of contract and employment matters, business torts involving fraud and enforcement of restrictive covenants, and plaintiffs’ recovery cases in the area of antitrust. As a veteran trial lawyer with over three decades of experience spanning a wide range of high-stakes matters, Mr. Campbell also teams regu...
Chris Cardwell is a trial lawyer in GSRM’s Litigation and Labor and Employment practice groups. He serves on the firm’s management, marketing and staff committees, and leads the Litigation and Labor and Employment practice groups. Chris represents life sciences, healthcare, railroad and transportation, and entertainment companies in complex commercial, employment, and intellectual property lawsuits.
George H. Cate, III, focuses his practice in civil litigation, crisis management, and representing corporations and individuals in connection with government and internal investigations. His civil litigation experience includes matters arising from a broad range of commercial and business transactions, misappropriation of trade secrets and other intellectual property disputes, non-competition and related business tort litigation, disputes under the False Claims Act, insurance litigation, bank...
Lauren Curry’s practice is focused primarily on business disputes, complex commercial litigation, and evaluating and resolving insurance coverage disputes. In her insurance coverage practice, Lauren has represented both insurance companies and policyholders and has assisted clients in resolving multi-million dollar coverage disputes, both in court and out of court, and teaches a course on insurance coverage to students at Vanderbilt Law School. She also assists clients in commercial lit...
John Farringer is a trial lawyer focusing on complex business and commercial litigation. He practices in state and federal courts at both the trial and appellate level, and is also experienced with all forms of alternative dispute resolution and before administrative agencies. Mr. Farringer has represented individuals and various types of business entities in a variety of matters, including contract disputes, tort and business tort actions, covenants not to compete/trade secrets, boundary and...
Mr. Griffin’s practice is focused on commercial, intellectual property, and insurance litigation in both state and federal courts. He has extensive jury and non-jury trial experience in corporate, business, entertainment, insurance, and personal injury litigation. Mr. Griffin has represented Country Music Hall of Fame songwriters, as well as various record companies, music publishing companies, manufacturers, and insurance companies in a wide variety of disputes. Mr. Griffin is a Tennes...
Bill Harbison is a member of Sherrard & Roe and works primarily in the areas of corporate law and trusts and estates. He also handles litigation in those same practice categories. Mr. Harbison is a 1980 graduate of Harvard Law School, cum laude . He received his bachelor's degree with highest honors in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1977. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Mr. Harbison is listed in The Best Lawyers of America. He is a member of the American...
Mr. Harwell focuses his practice on commercial litigation, white-collar criminal defense and crisis management. Through the years he has been involved in many cases receiving national attention. He has been counsel for numerous public officials including judges, governors, congressmen, state senators, mayors and state attorneys general. For the last several years, he has represented Pilot Flying J, the sixth largest private company in the country, regarding numerous issues arising out of the ...
Lela M. Hollabaugh has served as the lead trial lawyer in more than a dozen jury trials, as well as more than two dozen bench trials, arbitrations and administrative hearings. She advises leading natural gas pipeline companies on issues involving location, land acquisition, construction and operations. Hollabaugh serves as lead counsel for several pipeline projects in the southeast involving more than 200 lawsuits. She also represents leading pharmaceutical, medical device and other manufactu...
Ryan practices complex commercial litigation. With nearly a decade of experience litigating a wide range of business disputes on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants, Ryan has recently litigated covenants not to compete and trade secrets, real estate transactions, contract disputes, business torts, and shareholder and corporate-governance issues. Another part of Ryan’s practice focuses on antitrust, in which he represents large corporate clients in courts around the country. Ryan us...
Ty Howard brings the perspective of a former state and federal prosecutor to defending and counseling businesses and individuals involved in government investigations, compliance matters, False Claims Act and whistleblower cases, related business litigation, and white-collar criminal matters. As a litigator and chair of Bradley’s Government Enforcement and Investigations group, he works collaboratively with clients, across many industries, to find creative solutions to their compliance ...
Mr. Johnson’s practice focuses on business transactions, entertainment law, intellectual property, and complex commercial litigation. Mr. Johnson regularly handles copyright and trademark applications, intellectual property licensing, entertainment transactions, and corporate transactions. His clients include music licensing companies, tech companies, and various other businesses, for which he serves as a business advisor and outside general counsel. He also has extensive experience in ...
Jim Kay is a native Nashvillian known for handling high profile cases in both litigation and mediation. Mr. Kay has vast experience in the courtroom as he has tried over 80 jury cases and hundreds of non-jury cases. He is the most sought after mediator in the state, having completed over 3200 mediations and presided over nearly 300 arbitrations. He is chosen daily to assist as a neutral in the most difficult cases across Tennessee. Mr. Kay is highly experienced in both residential and commerc...
David King is a shareholder in the Health Care Litigation and Disputes group in Nashville and also serves as the Managed Care and Payor Disputes practice leader. Leveraging over 35 years of health care litigation experience, David leads a national practice representing many of the country’s renowned health care providers in all types of commercial payor disputes, payor strategy and managed care contracting. David has a deep understanding of the very complicated and constantly evolving m...
Peter F. Klett III, a member in Dickinson Wright’s Nashville office, focuses his practice on labor and employment law with a particular emphasis on class action lawsuits. He has served as lead counsel in many high-profile wage and hour compliance suits throughout the U.S. For nearly 30 years, Peter has proudly served as primary regional and local litigation counsel for independent trucking companies in catastrophic injury, wrongful death, and personal injury cases. He also represents co...
Leveraging both her well-honed advocacy skills and her extensive media background, Amy Rao Mohan develops effective approaches to protect her clients’ interests and reputations inside and outside of the courtroom. Founder and leader of the firm’s crisis management/media relations practice group, Amy represents individuals and businesses in civil litigation and criminal cases and assists clients with media training and press strategies. Focused on developing practical solutions to ...
Russ Morgan is a trial lawyer in the firm’s Litigation Section. He represents and advises clients in health care, product liability and construction litigation. He has been recognized in several publications, including The Best Lawyers in America (Commercial Litigation and Construction); Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business ; Nashville Business Journal ’s “Best of the Bar”; and Super Lawyers . Healthcare Russ represents health care providers under...
Scarlett Nokes has extensive experience in Title IX and sexual assault investigations and is currently handling numerous civil and criminal matters related to sexual misconduct. Scarlett draws upon her deep experience as a federal prosecutor to represent clients in a range of matters related to internal investigations, internal risk analysis, government investigations, white-collar criminal defense, regulatory and compliance issues, civil litigation and enforcement actions. Her clients benefi...
Bill Norton focuses his practice in the business bankruptcy area, dealing in all aspects of bankruptcy cases, creditor rights and insolvency. He first became familiar with the bankruptcy law from his Dad who was a noted scholar and Bankruptcy Judge in Atlanta, Georgia. Bill went to Vanderbilt Law School intending to practice in bankruptcy law and has done so since 1984. Over more than 25 years of practice of bankruptcy and insolvency law, Bill has represented just about every kind of client i...
An accomplished attorney, Eric sees litigation as an opportunity – an opportunity to protect his clients’ business and personal interests, an opportunity to advance critical principles of justice and fairness, and an opportunity to help people in times of crisis and need. Eric focuses his practice on contract disputes, white-collar criminal defense, antitrust matters, and civil rights cases. His advocacy is grounded in his creativity, empathy, and hands-on experience, having tried...
Todd Presnell is a trial lawyer licensed in Georgia and Tennessee who represents major corporations, small businesses, governmental entities, tax-exempt organizations, and individuals in their litigation-related needs. Mr. Presnell has served as lead counsel in federal and state courts across the country, including Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Texas. He has handled numerous bench and jury trials, argued before the Sixth, Seventh, and...
John Quinn's practice is in the defense of all aspects of civil litigation, including commercial, professional negligence, personal injury, products liability, employment and insurance litigation. He has extensive trial experience and has conducted more than 50 trials in both state and federal courts, as well as arbitrations in Tennessee and Europe. John earned his J.D. at Vanderbilt University Law School. He holds a B.A. in political science and a B.A. in history from Southern Methodist Univ...
Isaac Sanders is a Member of Neal & Harwell, PLC. He is an experienced litigator and trial lawyer who represents defendants and plaintiffs in matters ranging from “mass action” lawsuits involving products liability and toxic tort claims, to civil and white-collar criminal cases involving alleged healthcare fraud. In the last several years, Isaac has routinely been assigned a leading role in a variety of high-stakes cases involving both corporate and individual clients. He has ...
M. Clark Spoden is recognized in Tennessee as a Specialist in Civil Trial and Pre-Trial Advocacy as Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Clark is a Charter Fellow in the American College of Board Certified Attorneys, (2015) and has received recognition in The Best Lawyers in America®, Commercial Litigation (2010-2022), Litigation-Construction (2011-2022), Litigation-Environmental (2011-2022), Litigation-Labor and Employment (2011-2022), and in the Top 100 in Tennessee Super ...
Thor Urness practices complex business litigation, including bet-the-company cases, intellectual property litigation and related counseling. Thor has served as lead trial counsel in commercial litigation that yielded two of Tennessee’s largest jury verdicts, for $26.5 million and $18.8 million, both in favor of his clients. Thor’s practice is generally divided equally between matters in Tennessee and elsewhere.
Mike Vetter is an AV-rated trial lawyer and a Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 31 General Civil Mediator in Spicer Rudstrom’s Nashville office . He is the Chair of the firm’s Products Liability Group, and his practice is also concentrated in property and casualty litigation, construction litigation, insurance coverage, bad faith, auto and uninsured motorist litigation, and premises liability. Mike is licensed to practice in Tennessee, Kentucky, California, and Missouri. A cum laude gr...
Phil Welty is currently serving as GSRM’s managing partner and is a member of GSRM’s Litigation and Real Estate Sections. His practice focuses on the representation of lenders, title companies, commercial landlords and property managers, developers, contractors, and other businesses and individuals in litigation and resolution of a broad range of lending, consumer financial, real property transactions, title, construction, and other commercial matters. Phil handles matters for cli...
John Wingo is a Member with the Business Litigation Service Group at Stites & Harbison. He provides advice and representation to regional and national clients regarding their business transactions and handles commercial litigation defense work throughout Tennessee in both State and Federal Courts. John has more than 16 years of litigation and trial experience, including complex litigation involving financial institutions, insurance companies and manufacturers. He has deep experience in bu...
Heather Wright helps financial institutions identify operational risks and determine business solutions to mitigate those risks. She provides regulatory and compliance advice and manages litigation for financial institutions regarding compliance with, and alleged violations of, security agreements and other contracts as well as lending and consumer finance statutes and regulations -- particularly in matters involving property insurance and flood insurance. Heather also advises clients regardi...
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