Attorney Thomas Gatewood Sampson

Eloquence and persuasiveness, with style, is the trademark of Thomas G. Sampson, one of Atlanta’s premier lawyers.

Mr. Sampson is the Managing Partner of Thomas, Kennedy, Sampson, & Patterson, Georgia’s oldest minority-owned law firm, and is the product of a family steeped in the law.  His roots are in Durham, where his father, the late Daniel George Sampson, was a law professor and Dean at North Carolina Central University.  Like his father, Sampson graduated from Morehouse College and sought a career in the law.  He earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and later served as a member of the Society of International Business Fellows at the London School of Economics.  He has since practiced law for more than 30 years, building a national trial practice and reputation in the fields of personal injury, wrongful death and medical malpractice litigation. 

Throughout his distinguished career, Sampson has often been tapped to serve government, the Bar and the community.  Former Governor Roy Barnes appointed him Vice Chairman on the State Judicial Nominating Commission.  He has served as President of the Gate City Bar Association, President of the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, Chairman of the State Bar of Georgia’s Client Security Fund, Vice President of the Atlanta Council of Younger Lawyers, Vice Chairman of the State Bar of Georgia Disciplinary Board, and Regional Director of the National Bar Association.  Sampson was a member of the Supreme Court of Georgia’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Bias, the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, and the Board of Directors of the Atlanta Bar Association.  Sampson has served on the Board of Councilors for the Carter Center, and the Boards of Directors of the Atlanta Urban League and Senior Citizens Services of Metropolitan Atlanta.  He was also a charter member of the Neighborhood Justice Center, and served the organization as Vice Chairman for fifteen years. 

Currently, Sampson is a Member of the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Georgia.  He was appointed by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin to a special panel to evaluate the Atlanta Municipal Court and the City Court of Atlanta.  He is also a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Georgia, having been appointed by Attorney General Thurbert  Baker.

Sampson has always found time to teach and mentor young lawyers, particularly those interested in trial work.  He was an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgia State University for eight years, where he taught Litigation Techniques, and was an instructor at the Atlanta College of Trial Advocacy. 

Sampson has blazed trails for minorities in his profession.  He has represented the City of Atlanta and the State of Georgia in major litigation, and has prosecuted catastrophic injury cases resulting in several record setting, seven figure verdicts in State and Federal Court.  Additionally, Sampson has successfully represented Fortune 500 corporations in major litigation.  Because of his successful career, he is the first African American to have been inducted into the Georgia Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates and he has been listed in every published edition of The Best Lawyers in America since 1993.  Moreover, he has served as a Master in both the Bleckley and Logan Inns of the American Inns of Court.  Locally, Atlanta Magazine has consistently included Sampson in its list of the “Best Lawyers in Atlanta,” and he has been a Georgia “Super Lawyer” in every year of its existence, an honor reserved for the top 5 percent of the lawyers in the State.

Sampson’s brother, sister and son are lawyers, as was his cousin, the late R. E. Thomas, Jr., a founding member of Atlanta’s Gate City Bar Association.  Sampson has been married to his college sweetheart, Dr. Jacquelyn Sampson, a microbiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for 38 years.  His son, Thomas G. “Woody” Sampson, II, is a Partner with Thomas, Kennedy, Sampson & Patterson, and his daughter, Alia, is a graduate of Spelman College and Meharry Medical College in Nashville, TN.