Karen Lea Smiley

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Practice Areas

  • Appellate Practice
  • Construction Defects
  • Directors and Officers Liability
  • Long-Term & Elder Care Litigation
  • Medical Malpractice Defense
  • Premises Liability
  • Products Liability

Karen specializes in the defense of medical professionals, long-term care facilities, non-profit corporations, and nonprofit boards of directors. She handles matters in federal court as well as in state courts throughout Georgia and Alabama at both the trial and appellate levels. Karen has successfully defended hundreds of matters involving medical malpractice, negligence, breach of contract, directors/officers liability, premises liability, defamation, discrimination, and construction defects.
She has extensive experience in defending facilities and care providers engaged in long term care including cases involving skin breakdown, falls, nutrition, hydration, and elopement.

  • B.B.A, Economics and Finance, Loyola University Chicago (1994)
  • J.D, Tulane University School of Law (1997)

  • Summary judgment in favor of nurses and a long-term care facility in a matter involving a pulmonary embolism and death
  • Successful motion to dismiss professional negligence claims against a long-term care facility sued for an alleged breach of duty related skin breakdown by challenging sufficiency expert affidavit
  • Successfully challenged and disqualified expert witnesses seeking to present opinions at trial relative to the standard of care applicable in a long-term care setting
  • Sought and was awarded attorney’s fees against Plaintiff suing long-term care facility for alleged failure to monitor
  • Defense of nursing staff and long-term care and nursing homes against allegations of negligence involving pressure wounds, falls, nutrition/hydration, elopements
  • Enforcement of arbitration provisions/ agreements

  • State Bar of Alabama
  • Alabama Court of Appeals
  • The Supreme Court of Alabama
  • U.S. District Court, Northern District of Alabama
  • State Bar of Georgia
  • Georgia Court of Appeals
  • The Supreme Court of Georgia
  • U.S. District Court, Northern and Middle Districts of Georgia

  • State Bar of Alabama
  • State Bar of Georgia
  • Atlanta Bar Association
  • Defense Research Institute
  • Georgia Associations of Women Lawyers
  • Georgia Defense Lawyers’ Association

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