Profile

Mr. Hopkins is a member of the Corporate and Business Department at Taylor English. His practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and insurance regulatory and transaction matters. Mr. Hopkins has more than 30 years of cumulative service on the boards of NYSE and NASDAQ–listed corporations, with service on executive, nominating/governance and compensation committees.

From 1965–1993, Mr. Hopkins was a senior corporate partner at an Atlanta-based, international corporate law firm, where he was lead outside corporate and acquisition counsel for a number of the largest corporations based in the Southeast. During those years he also served as acquisition, corporate and board counsel for three of the largest life insurers in the region. From 1993–2003, Mr. Hopkins served as General Counsel for Jefferson-Pilot Financial, including its life insurance and broadcast subsidiaries, where he led the legal effort on acquisitions totaling $2 Billion and supervised corporate compliance, including internal audits. From 2003 until joining Taylor English in 2009, Mr. Hopkins served as counsel to a transatlantic, full-service law firm. Mr. Hopkins has appeared in hearings before the Insurance Departments of many states, including Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, and New Hampshire.

For approximately 10 years, Mr. Hopkins was Chair of the Corporate Code Revision Committee of the Corporate Section of the State Bar of Georgia. He has spoken extensively on corporate governance and ethics matters at the Tulane Corporate Law Institute, where he was a member of the planning committee, at the Terry (UGA) and McColl Graduate Schools of Business Directors’ Colleges, and he chaired the panel on legal ethics and corporate governance at the Georgia Bar’s 25th Annual Business Law Institute. He has been engaged as an expert witness in litigation involving major corporate governance matters and has served as an arbitrator in disputes involving insurance industry transactions.

Memberships

State Bar of Georgia

American Bar Association

Practice Highlights

Experience

  • RECENT RELEVANT EXPERIENCE (2015-2016)

    VNS Corporation: Acquisition by merger into Building Materials Holding Corporation (BMC)

    Represented VNS, a leading Southeastern buildings materials dealer and manufacturer, and its Board in connection with the company's acquisition by merger into BMC, a leading provider of residential building products and construction services to professional builders and contractors in the Western United States. Mr. Hopkins also acted as Board counsel, advising the directors on their duties in a change of control transaction.

  • Corporate control dispute with co-shareholders in a transportation business

    Represented a high net worth family in resolution of a corporate control dispute with co-shareholders in a transportation business valued in the range of $100 million. 

  • Reliance Financial Corporation's acquisition by Fidelity Information Services

    Advised Reliance Financial Corporation on its acquisition by merger by Fidelity Information Services (NYSE: FIS). The transaction, which had an aggregate purchase price of $110 million, brought together the world’s largest provider of banking and payments technology and one of the largest independent trust companies in the United States. Assisted with the negotiation and preparation of the Agreement and Plan of Merger and the ancillary documents needed to ...

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Education

University of Virginia Law School, LLB, cum laude, 1965

Vanderbilt University, BA, 1959

Bar Admissions

Georgia

District of Columbia (inactive)

Accolades

Best Lawyers in America®, 2014 Atlanta Corporate Governance Law “Lawyer of the Year,” Corporate and Corporate Governance, 2007–2020

Martindale-Hubbell AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rated

Georgia Super Lawyers, 2006–2014, Mergers and Acquisitions

Who’s Who Legal Georgia, Corporate Governance and Insurance

Who’s Who in American Law  

Who’s Who in America