Gov. Kemp appoints First State-wide Business Court Judge

On Monday, July 15, Georgia Governor Brian P. Kemp appointed Walter W. Davis to serve as the first state-wide business court judge. The Georgia State-wide Business Court was approved by Georgia voters in the November 2018 election and codified with bipartisan support in the 2019 legislative session.  “With over seventeen years of private-sector experience, Walt Davis will bring invaluable business law expertise to this new state-wide court,” said Governor Kemp. “I am truly honored to nominate him to this position, and I have the utmost confidence that he will govern his courtroom with integrity and impartiality. By allowing companies to resolve their differences quickly and judiciously through the business court, businesses can get back to doing what they do best: creating jobs and opportunity for hardworking Georgians.”  Walter “Walt” Davis currently serves as the Administrative Partner of the Jones Day Law Firm in Atlanta where he oversees a wide range of operational and financial matters. Over the last seventeen years, Walt has focused his practice on securities litigation, shareholder disputes, and corporate governance matters and regularly counsels boards of directors and senior management in connection with governmental and internal investigations. He has significant experience handling insider trading, accounting, and corporate compliance matters, among others. Walt recently first-chaired a well-publicized appraisal dispute in Delaware Chancery Court (In re Appraisal of Jarden Corporation), and currently leads the defense of The Southern Company and some of its officers and directors in a securities fraud class action and related derivative lawsuits pending in federal court in Atlanta.  Walt currently serves as co-chair of the Securities and Corporate Litigation Subcommittee of the Atlanta Bar Association, and he is also a member of the Atlanta Bar Association’s Judicial Selection and Tenure Committee. He also serves as the Administrative Partner for the Atlanta Office.