James W. Hawkins

Jim is a seasoned trial lawyer with over 35 years of experience in dispute resolution. He has litigated, arbitrated and mediated cases all over the country. For the first seventeen years of his career, Jim worked as an associate and then as a partner at Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy (now Brian Cave). Jim held several leadership positions while at the firm including the chair of the Intellectual Property and High Tech Litigation Group. Jim left Powell Goldstein in 2000 to become Chief Litigation Counsel for Kimberly-Clark Corporation where he was responsible for all employment, product liability and general commercial litigation throughout the United States. For several years during his tenure at Kimberly-Clark, Jim chaired, was on the Executive Committee and was a member of the prestigious Chief Litigation Counsel Association. Jim has experience with a wide variety of complex commercial cases, general business disputes, patent, trademark and copyright cases, employment disputes and real estate litigation. Jim is an AV Preeminent® lawyer. He graduated from the University of Georgia with an A.B.J. in 1980 and a J.D. (cum laude) in 1983. Jim is a member of the Eleventh Circuit, Third Circuit and Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal, the Georgia Court of Appeals, the Georgia Supreme Court, the Northern District of Georgia, the District Court for the District of Columbia and the Northern District of California.

Jim’s representative work includes the trial of a patent dispute in the Northern District of California. The case, which generated one of the largest reasonable royalty awards at the time, was affirmed on appeal by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. Jim successfully appealed a patent dispute tried in the Northern District of Georgia. Jim successfully managed two multi-million dollar insurance coverage matters and a $55 million settlement in a securities fraud lawsuit while at Kimberly-Clark. Most recently, Jim successfully recovered $843,000 on Equal Access to Government Act claim which was affirmed on appeal by the Eleventh Circuit