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Emmet Bondurant Takes on the Corporations

AJC Home Edition
© The Atlanta Journal - Constitution
Sunday, 10/15/2000
Section: Business    Letter: Q    Page: 4    Words: 514

FIGHTING THE POWER: Bondurant takes on the corporations
RACE AND BUSINESS IN ATLANTA

By Matthew C. Quinn/Staff

The law firm representing employees in racial discrimination suits against Georgia Power Co. and Coca-Cola Co. has a long history of taking on the establishment.

"Part of your job is not to be intimidated by the rich and arrogant. If you're not prepared to fight it out with people in power, you're really in the wrong business," Emmet J. Bondurant II, of Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, said 12 years ago.

At age 27, Bondurant argued the landmark 1964 case before the U.S. Supreme Court that forced Georgia to redraw congressional district lines in keeping with the "one man, one vote" principle. Bondurant was a founding partner in 1977 of Trotter, Bondurant, Miller & Hishon. The firm has gone through a number of incarnations and is now Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore. Bondurant, now 63, remains active with the firm.

The firm has in its 33-year history sued the elite law firm King & Spalding and the Southern Baptist Convention and opposed Time Warner more than once.

H. Lamar Mixson was co-counsel in a 1998 lawsuit that resulted in a $454 million state court judgment against Time Warner, the largest in state history. Mixson and Columbus attorney Jim Butler represented investors who accused the New York media conglomerate of intentionally letting Six Flags Over Georgia deteriorate under its management so it could buy control of the theme park for less. Time Warner has since sold the attraction, but the Georgia Court of Appeals upheld the verdict in July.

Bondurant Mixson also took on Coca-Cola once before, representing bottlers who sued in 1980 over the cost of syrup. The case resulted in a $20 million jury verdict 11 years later. It was reduced on appeal to $1.

Bondurant Mixson was recruited in 1998 for the latest Coke lawsuit by Washington attorney Cyrus Mehri, who needed local lawyers to pursue the case.

"No other Atlanta law firm would take it," says Mixson. "A lot of lawyers don't want to sue big powerful companies."

Following publicity over the Coke case, employees of Georgia Power contacted the firm about filing a racial discrimination suit against the utility and its parent, Southern Co. That suit was filed July 27. Bondurant later brought in famed trial attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr.

Mehri and Bondurant Mixson dropped four Coke employees as clients after one of them complained that he overheard the lawyers in a cynical discussion of settlement terms and attorney fees in a conference call last March. Mixson calls the man's account "inaccurate."

Bondurant Mixson prides itself on taking on the powerful but has its share of corporate clients, including Delta Air Lines, International Dairy Queen Corp., Avon Products and Ticketmaster Southeast.

"They're not big enough to be a full-service firm," said Howard Hunter, dean of the Emory University School of Law. "They have some of the best trial lawyers around," he said, adding that the firm is very selective in the lawyers it hires.

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The article first appeared on the Web on law.com.