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Partners (Topic)

Phillip E. Friduss

Phillip E. Friduss
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Phillip E. Friduss

Partner
Atlanta Office
pfriduss@hallboothsmith.com
T: 404.954.6959
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Biography

Phil Friduss is a Partner in the Atlanta office with strong practice ties to the Firm’s 6 Georgia regional offices. His practice focuses on the defense of high-exposure cases in the areas of governmental liability, labor and employment, correctional health care, and education. In over 30 years, Phil has had the pleasure of representing over 225 public entities.

For the success of his team, Phil has been named a Georgia Super Lawyer by Atlanta Magazine 16 times, and he has also been an honored member of Georgia Trend Magazine’s Legal Elite in the area of labor and employment law. For over 20 years, he has been AV Preeminent® Peer Review Rated™ by Martindale-Hubbell.

Phil has been a member of DRI’s Governmental Liability Committee for over 20 years, serving as its Chairman from 2012 to 2014. He is a national level speaker and author. His legal column, Towns and the Law, appeared monthly from 2011 to 2018 in Georgia Municipal Association’s flagship print publication, Georgia Cities.

Experience

Correctional Health Care

Having represented the largest private correctional health care provider in the world for nearly 20 years, Phil has seen every type of correctional health care case imaginable. Delays in treatment, suicides, tasering cases, excited delirium death cases, medical negligence, class actions, and claims under brought under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 – Phil has been at the forefront of correctional health care cases since they started popping up with regularity in the 1990s.

Education

Phil has successfully represented Georgia school districts and officials in every manner of education law, including Title IX matters, IDEA cases, and FERPA matters to name a few.

Phil also serves as counsel to school districts in matters related to Georgia’s Fair Dismissal Practices Act. Phil currently serves as the Advisory Chair to the Defense Research Institute’s newly minted Education Substantive Law Group

Governmental Liability

In representing now well over 200 different public entities, Phil’s governmental liability practice covers every corner of Georgia, often in tandem with the firm’s regional offices in Georgia. He has successfully defended jury trials in every federal district in the state.
Phil works closely with public entities and officials as insurance, special, and outside counsel in all manner of 1983 litigation and state law matters. With a governmental practice ranging from police misconduct to First Amendment cases, from land use to wrongful death suits, and from high-speed pursuits to jail cases, he is a go-to lawyer in the highest exposure cases.

Phil is a widely known speaker and author on both the state and national levels. He served as Chairman of the powerful Defense Research Institute’s Governmental Liability Committee (where he presently serves on the Advisory Board), and also chaired the American Bar Association’s Sub-Committee on Civil Rights / First Amendment Liability. From 2011 to 2018 he served as the legal columnist for the Georgia Municipal Association’s flagship print publication Georgia Cities.

Labor & Employment

Over 30 years, Phil has successfully defended employment discrimination cases in every Georgia federal district. Phil has worked as insurance counsel, special counsel, outside counsel, and as an investigator within both the private and public sector communities.Georgia Trend magazine has awarded Phil the honor of being a member of Georgia’s Legal Elite in the area of labor and employment law.

Credentials

Admitted

State Courts:

  • Georgia

Education

  • J.D., Mercer University, 1989
  • B.A., Belmont College, 1983

Memberships

  • Georgia Defense Lawyers Association
  • Defense Research Institute, Governmental Liability Committee:
    • Member, 2000-Present
    • Chairman, 2012-2014
  • Senator Paul Coverdell’s Crime and Law Enforcement Task Force, 1998-2000
  • American Bar Association:
    • Committee on Civil Rights Liability, 1998
    • Sub-Committee on Civil Rights / First Amendment Liability, 1997

Recognition

Presentations

Since 1996, Phil has regularly presented at numerous national and local engagements such as those for DRI, ABA, Georgia ICLE, ACHSA, USLAW, the Texas Bar Association, and others.

Publications

More +

In the Press

Supreme Court Expands Fourth Amendment Protections

March 30, 2021
Written by: Phillip E. Friduss, Esq.  Getting hit by a bullet but still escaping in the getaway car implicates the Fourth Amendment after all sayeth Chief Justice Roberts in a heated 5-3 Opinion along ideological lines.  Justice Amy Coney Barrett took no part in the case, which was argued in October before she took her
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Supreme Court Quietly Hammers Fifth Circuit in Conditions of Confinement Case, Reversing Qualified Immunity Ruling

November 5, 2020
Written by: Phillip E. Friduss, Esq. This past Monday, in a per curiam decision (Justice Barrett not participating; Justice Alito concurring to suggest cert should not have been granted, but otherwise concurring with the judgment; and, Justice Thomas, dissenting without written opinion) the Supreme Court reversed and remanded a Fifth Circuit conditions of confinement qualified
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Supreme Court Takes on New Fourth Amendment Case

October 27, 2020
Written by: Phillip E. Friduss, Esq. Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Lange v. California, Docket No. 20-18, where the issue has been coined in two different, but similar ways: Whether the pursuit of a person whom a police officer has probable cause to believe has committed a misdemeanor categorically qualifies as an
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Supreme Court Refuses to Stop Order to Move Inmates From Virus-Ravaged Prison

June 4, 2020
Written by: Phillip E. Friduss, Esq. Thus is the title of Adam Liptak’s New York Times coverage of the Ohio inmate transfer case, Williams v Wilson case we reported on last week. The piece begins: “The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused a request from the Trump administration to block a trial judge’s ruling that had ordered
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