Michael Malthus Trotter

Michael H. Trotter received his law degree from the Harvard Law School in 1962, and his B.A. degree from Brown University cum laude (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1958. Prior to attending law school he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the Harvard University Ph.D. Program in American History and was awarded a Master’s Degree in History in 1959.

Mr. Trotter’s studies of law firm growth and change have combined the perspectives of a successful practicing attorney, an experienced law firm manager and a historian. As a partner in two of the largest and most successful firms in America (the predecessors of Alston & Bird and of Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton) and three entrepreneurial law firms, he has been a keen student of the economics and ethos of modern law practice.

Mr. Trotter has written and spoken frequently on law firm management, operations and economics and the cost-effective delivery of legal services. He has also been a columnist for Atlanta’s legal newspaper, "The Daily Report," and he is the author of "Pig in a Poke? The Uncertain Advantages of Very Large and Highly Leveraged Law Firms in America," which appeared as a chapter in the American Bar Association’s publication, "Raise the Bar – Real World Solutions for a Troubled Profession" (2007).

His courses in law firm management and economics at the Emory University School of Law in the early 1990s may have been the first, and were certainly among the first, to be taught at a major American law school. He is a partner in the “New Model” law firm of Taylor English Duma LLP.