Cale Conley

Cale grew up in Smyrna, Georgia and went to the University of Georgia, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, summa cum laude with highest honors. After completing his undergraduate degree, Cale worked at the law firm of Butler, Wooten in Atlanta, where he had his first taste of Plaintiffs’ litigation as the initial document clerk in the case of Moseley v. General Motors, a side-saddle GM fuel tank case which ultimately tried to a $105 million jury verdict in 1993 in Atlanta.

Cale left Butler, Wooten to pursue a writing career, authoring two critically-acclaimed hardbound books in two years — War Between the States (1992, Gridiron Publishers) and Sunshine Hate (1993, Gridiron Publishers) – chronicling the histories of southern college football rivalries.

Cale then enrolled at the University of Georgia Law School, where he was a member of both the Georgia Law Review Editorial Board and the Georgia Moot Court Program and graduated magna cum laude. His law review note, A State Law Theory for Product Liability Claims: A Journey Best Not Taken, was published in the Georgia Law Review, and in his third year, he was a member of Georgia’s National Moot Court Team which finished 2nd in the nation at the National Championship in New York. Cale also worked in the Hall County District Attorney’s office under the third-year practice act and prosecuted three narcotics cases to verdict while still in law school. He was named a member of both Order of the Coif, for academic excellence, and Order of the Barristers, recognizing excellence in courtroom advocacy. In 1998, Cale also served as an adjunct professor at the UGA School of Law, teaching a class in Appellate Advocacy.

Cale took a full-time position as an attorney at Butler, Wooten in 1996, where he worked for five years. In 1997, he participated in the two-month trial of Rodriguez v. Suzuki in St. Louis, a Suzuki Samurai rollover case which resulted in a jury verdict of $36.9 million. He also worked as lead associate during the six-week trial of Six Flags v. Time Warner in Gwinnett County, Georgia in 1998, a case which resulted in a then Georgia-record $454 million verdict for the Plaintiffs. Cale participated heavily in the appellate briefing on that case as well, which became and still is the largest verdict ever to be affirmed by the Georgia appellate courts.

Since forming his own firm in 2001, Cale has served as lead counsel in hundreds of cases involving serious injury, death, or economic damages to his clients. He has served as lead or co-lead counsel at trial in seven verdicts exceeding $1 million dollars and four verdicts at or above $10 million, including a $24.8 million award in Gaines v. Cumberland County Hospital System in 2011, a $10 million verdict in Hernandez v. Hi-Tech Engineering in 2013 and a $17 million verdict in Christianson v. American Honda Motor Co. in 2024. Cale’s current practice focuses on products liability, workplace injury cases with third party tort liability, cases involving fires, explosions, electrocution or severe burns, cases involving paralysis or spinal cord injury, cases involving severe traumatic brain injury, and wrongful death cases. His passion is to try to help those who have suffered catastrophic injuries obtain a better life by holding responsible parties accountable for those injuries and recovering damages that can make a difference in family’s lives. In particular, Cale enjoys the challenge of cases involving technical and legal complexity.

Cale has personally inspected over 500 vehicles or consumer products and successfully overseen the pursuit of well over 100 product liability cases, including automotive product defects like air bag defects, seat back failures, seat belt failures, tire tread failures or negligent vehicle repairs by tire or automotive repair shops. Relying on his deep ties within the State of Georgia honed over four decades, Cale also regularly serves as local counsel for law firms across the nation who have significant cases in Georgia and need expertise in Georgia practice, procedure and custom.

Cale is admitted to practice in all state courts in Georgia, the Northern District of Georgia, the Middle District of Georgia, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States Supreme Court, and is a member of the State Bar of West Virginia (currently inactive). In addition, he has served as counsel pro hac vice in cases across the United States, with an emphasis on cases in the Southeast but reaching as far as Hawaii and California.

Beyond zealous representation of clients, Cale is a leader in both the state and national legal community. In January 2024, Cale was appointed by the Supreme Court of Georgia to serve as one of six Bar Examiners in the State of Georgia, tasked with assisting his fellow Examiners, the Georgia Supreme Court and the Office of Bar Examination with various tasks related to the admission to practice law, including but not limited to writing bar exam questions and grading bar exams for applicants.

In his career, Cale has served a member of the Executive Committee of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association (2001-2006), the Editor-in-Chief of The Brief, the national magazine of the ABA Tort and Insurance Practice Section (2002-2004), and for many years was a member of the Communications Committee and Bench & Bar committee of the State Bar of Georgia. He is also a past District Representative of the University of Georgia Law School Alumni Council and is often a guest lecturer at the UGA school of law on topics such as products liability. Cale is also a frequent speaker at CLE programs through various professional groups and has appeared on programs across the country on various topics. And last but certainly not least, he is a proud member of the Summit Council, an exclusive and close-knit group of trial lawyers from across the U.S. who have obtained significant results for their clients and demonstrate a deep commitment to the betterment of the law.

Cale has been named a “SuperLawyer” by Atlanta Magazine for twenty-one consecutive years in the area of products liability, and has twice been named to Georgia Trend’s list of the “Legal Elite” in Georgia. He was also featured on the United Airlines’ SkyRadio program “America’s Best Lawyers.”

Cale lives in Atlanta with his wife and four children and is a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church. Outside the law, when time allows, he loves coaching youth sports, cheering on his beloved Georgia Bulldogs, and reading good books.

Contact Cale Conley

cale@conleygriggs.com

4200 Northside Parkway, NW Building One, Suite 300
Atlanta, GA 30327

Phone: (404) 809-2580
Fax: (404) 467-1166