Steven D. Barnhart

Steven D. Barnhart received his law degree and MBA at the University of Richmond. In law school, he was on the Moot Court Board and received the American Jurisprudence Book Award in Corporations. He spent his first five years at Drew, Eckl & Farnham LLP, representing local governments in state and federal courts in a wide variety of cases, including law enforcement litigation (excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution and medical care/conditions of confinement), high speed pursuit and routine automobile accident cases, zoning, land use and business regulation and employment litigation.  He left to join Joseph J. Burton, Jr., a small business litigation practice and spent the next couple of years representing multiple plaintiffs in securities fraud litigation. He also handled small business debt and dissolution workouts with an occasional foray into bankruptcy court.  

In 1991 Mr. Barnhart co-founded Barnhart, O’Quinn & Williams, LLP.  In that same year, he became one of the youngest lawyers to receive individually the AV Peer Review Rating by Martindale Hubbell.  Barnhart, O’Quinn & Williams soon grew to ten lawyers and focused primarily on local government defense litigation. The firm also handled several plaintiff cases involving medical malpractice, wrongful death, employment and personal injury as well as business and employment litigation representing plaintiffs and defendants.  In 2001, after a brief return to Drew Eckl, Mr. Barnhart decided to leave the institutional defense practice to focus on the representation of individual plaintiffs and small businesses.  

During the past twenty-five years Mr. Barnhart has represented plaintiffs in cases involving automobile and trucking accidents, medical malpractice, contract disputes, business and employment litigation, premises liability and a variety of other matters.  He has also continued to represent individual defendants in employment litigation and several small business clients in litigation and in employment and contract matters. 

Steve Barnhart is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Middle and Southern Districts of Georgia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.  He is also a certified mediator and arbitrator. He first served as mediator in the mid-nineties and has since generated a success rate exceeding ninety percent. He has served on several professional committees and the University of Richmond Law School Association Board of Directors and has served two terms as President of the Kiwanis Club of Northside Atlanta. He is a Lifetime Fellow of the Atlanta Bar Foundation and a member of the Atlanta Bar Association, the Lawyers Club of Atlanta and the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association.