J. Burruss "Buzzy" Riis

Greg Dunagan is a shareholder in the Mobile (AL) office. His practice primarily involves defending businesses in premises liability litigation and employers in workers’ compensation claims. He also defends claims involving workers’ compensation retaliatory discharge, automobile negligence and personal injury. Greg is also a trained mediator and is available to assist attorneys and their clients in mediating disputes involving his areas of practice. Greg is AV Preeminent ® rate...

Karen practices civil litigation with a focus on the defense of medical malpractice claims. Karen also has extensive experience in appellate advocacy in state and federal appellate courts.

Ron Snider is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group, where he focuses his practice on bank regulatory law and corporate law. From 1973 to 1979, Ron was with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, first in the Office of the General Counsel, and then as assistant secretary. He also served as assistant secretary of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation from 1976 to 1979. In addition to his active involvement in a number of professional associations, Ron is a member, and past chairman, of the...

Focusing on strategic planning, motion practice, and appeals, Dave Wirtes has worked for over three decades helping our firm and our clients be successful in litigation. Dave’s efforts in Alabama, Mississippi, and throughout the Country help protect working men and women in ways most will never know. He has won many battles against powerful defendants and in the course of doing so helped change laws to give victims justice. He has been rated by Martindale Hubbell for decades as AV® ...

A fifth-generation attorney with 40 years of legal experience, Bill’s practice at Helmsing Leach is focused on civil litigation with an emphasis on appellate advocacy. He has handled numerous appeals in state and federal courts resulting in more than one hundred published decisions. Bill’s practice also includes environmental law and insurance litigation, and he has represented clients in a variety of civil disputes in product liability, construction litigation and more. In additi...

Tara W. Lockett is a shareholder in the firm’s Mobile (AL) office. Her practice areas include the defense of workers’ compensation claims, retaliation cases, employment claims and premises liability (retail practice). She represents several insurance companies and self-insureds in employment matters in Alabama. Tara earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Alabama and her JD from the University of Alabama School of Law. Tara is a speaker on workers’ co...

For more than three decades, Joseph P. H. Babington has handled civil litigation in state and federal courts in Alabama and around the country. Joe has tried cases, argued appeals, and prosecuted and defended arbitrations. He has worked on a broad range of complex matters and has deep experience in products liability defense, catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases, and business and commercial disputes. Joe presented the winning argument in the United States Supreme Court in Kumho Tire C...

Will Gamble practices in the area of construction, tort and commercial litigation. His commercial practice involves litigating and advising business clients on corporate disputes, officer and director fiduciary liability, shareholder claims, breach of contract, breach of warranty, deceptive trade practices, consumer protection, fraud, professional liability and bad faith claims. His practice also focuses on personal injury claims, including defense of products liability, premises liability, w...

Bo Williams is licensed in Alabama and Florida and practices in the areas of insurance, litigation and admiralty throughout those states and the broader Southeast. He focuses his practice on complex first-party and third-party insurance coverage, litigation and counseling. Bo represents various Underwriting Syndicates at Lloyd's and domestic market insurers in first and third-party bad-faith matters and excess engagements and routinely represents their insureds in litigation throughout the So...

Steve Nicholas is part of an elite group of Alabama litigators known for their skill in handling Bet-the-Company cases. A big picture thinker, his work revolves around complex litigation claims including business disputes, class actions, mass torts and major construction disputes. Among his many noteworthy cases is representing thousands of business owners who filed lawsuits and claims in connection with the BP oil spill , an event that is deemed to be the worst environmental disaster in the ...