Lawyer's Profile...

[From Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Lawyer's profile suddenly higher

By JEFFRY SCOTT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/06/04

When an Atlanta public figure gets into trouble these days, the lawyer on speed dial seems to be Mark Trigg.

Trigg represents Juvenile Court Judge Nina Hickson, who announced on Monday she is resigning, and he represents Fulton County Sheriff Jackie Barrett, whose office is being investigated for its handling of $7.2 million in Sheriff's Department funds. Trigg also represents singer Whitney Houston and Maynard Holbrook "Buzzy" Jackson III, the son of late Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson who was arrested for possession of marijuana and was sentenced to probation.

Trigg, 44, recently emerged as a face before news crews to rival well-known Atlanta attorneys such as Don Samuel, Lee Sexton, Ed Garland, Bruce Harvey and Steve Sadow.

On Tuesday, after a news conference for Barrett, Trigg played down his sudden prominence. "It's been a busy week," he said, adding: "Most of my work is not high profile."

He said "95 percent" of his practice is corporate litigation. He came to represent Hickson, Barrett, Jackson and Houston through social and legal connections, he said.

He met Hickson when both attended law school at Emory University. He met Barrett through her husband, Gene Washington, in Leadership Atlanta, an organization that promotes diversity in the city. He took on the case of the younger Jackson because he was friends with the late mayor.

Houston was referred by Joel Katz, the prominent Atlanta entertainment attorney who also works at Trigg's firm, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Trigg said.

"I do a few things for Whitney," said Trigg. "Some issues with a speeding ticket, an issue about drug rehabilitation, and there's a May 5th hearing involving a 911 call about an altercation with her husband [singer Bobby Brown]."

Trigg came to law in a roundabout way. He majored in philosophy at Millsaps College in Jackson. Miss., and studied both law and divinity at Emory. While in law school, he was a minister at Belmont United Methodist Church in Lithonia. He quit the church because he couldn't devote "24 an hours a day" to it, he said.

"My father told me when I told him I wanted to be a lawyer instead of a minister that 'people won't know when you say "Let us pray" whether you're spelling it with an a or an e,' " said Trigg.

His Methodist background serves well in the courtroom, said a former partner, Cary Ichter of Atlanta: "He's exceedingly bright, he's charming, and he knows how to preach."

NEWSFILE: 6 APRIL 2004