Austin Gillis

Professional Organizations and Memberships

• State Bar of Georgia
  
  • Member since 2004
• Cobb County Bar Association
  
  • Member since 2004
  • Recipient of the Cobb County Bar Association President’s Award in 2005
  • Two-time editor of the Cobb Bar News
• Cobb County Younger Lawyer’s Division
  
  • Member since 2004
  • Secretary, 2010-2013
• Oglethorpe University National Alumni Association
  
  • Member of Alumni Board of Directors, 2010-2016
  • Secretary, 2011-2012
  • Vice President, 2012-2013
  • President, 2013-2015
• Oglethorpe University Board of Trustees
  
  • Member, 2013-present
• Cobb County High School Mock Trial, Marietta, Georgia
  
  • Attorney Coach of Marietta High School Mock Trial Team, 2006-2009 (2007 Region Runner-Up)
  • Judge, Cobb County Mock Trial Competition, 2010-present
• The Extension (Marietta, Georgia)
  
  • Board member at a residential addiction recovery center for formerly homeless men and women, 2012-present
• Manos de Jesus Mission (Chichicastenango, Guatemala)
  
  • Participated in mission trip, building houses and feeding schoolchildren, 2019

Austin, a native of Marietta, Georgia, has been practicing law in Cobb County since 2004. He began his career as a staff attorney in the Superior Court of Cobb County, and he has worked as a civil litigator since entering private practice in 2007.

Throughout his career, Austin has represented a broad array of clients, including hospitals and health care systems, large civil engineering firms, commercial and residential construction companies, insurers, small business owners, and banks. He has handled a wide variety of cases from inception through conclusion. He has taken hundreds of depositions, attended countless hearings, and served as lead counsel in regulatory hearings, arbitrations, and jury trials. 

As a member of GDCR’s Education Practice, Austin assists in representing the firm’s education clients in lawsuits pending in both state and federal courts, as well as before administrative agencies. He aids in the development and oversight of policies and procedures, compliance with federal and state rules and regulations, and resolution of general administrative and regulatory issues.

Among other favorable results Austin has obtained for his clients, he has:

• successfully challenged experts’ qualifications under Georgia’s Daubert statute, leading to the exclusion of such experts’ testimony (see, e.g., Vaughan v. WellStar Health System, Inc., 304 Ga.App. 596 (2010));
• secured dismissals and summary judgments in numerous liability cases;
• won trials by jury verdict and by directed verdict; and
• successfully mediated cases ranging from business disputes, to personal injury cases, to cases concerning privacy rights.