Oscar N. Persons

Oscar N. Persons’ practice currently focuses on arbitration, business mediation and business dispute counseling. He has more than 51 years’ experience in complex business litigation handling individual and class action matters and related appeals and mediation. These matters have included breach of contract, securities fraud, fiduciary duty, negligent misrepresentation, restrictive covenants, trade secrets, and tortious interference. He has practiced at state and federal levels, in trial and appellate courts, and before arbitration tribunals over a wide geographical scope and has handled more than 52 trials as first chair.

Mr. Persons’ experience includes acting as counsel for respondent in the 2008 United States Supreme Court decision in Stoneridge Investment Partners vs. Scientific Atlanta, 128 S. Ct. 761, where the Supreme Court held against private “scheme liability” claims under the federal securities laws. Public commentators called it the most important Supreme Court business decision in a decade. In 2010, Mr. Persons was counsel for defendants who received summary judgment in their favor in Federal Court in Atlanta in the securities fraud class action Scientific Atlanta Inc. Securities Litigation, 754 F. Supp. 2d 1339 (N.D. GA. 2010). That decision was affirmed by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Phillips v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., No. 10-15910, 2012 WL 3854795 (11th Cir. Sept. 6, 2012).

He is active in Georgia Republican affairs and has been General Counsel for the Georgia Republican Party and Chair of various United States Senate and Presidential Campaigns in Georgia. Mr. Persons was a member of the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts for the Kennedy Center, appointed by President George W. Bush. Mr. Persons served as an officer on a Navy destroyer and has been active in Georgia Tech affairs, where he was President of the Student Body and Reunion Fund Chair for his fiftieth class reunion.

Affiliations

• American Arbitration Association Roster of Neutrals, Member
• State Bar of Georgia

Recognitions

• Martindale-Hubbell® Judicial AV Preeminent® Rating, 2019
• Daily Report’s 125th Anniversary, first ever “Lifetime Achievement” honorees, 2015
• Chambers USA, Georgia Litigation: General Commercial, 2006-2013
• The Best Lawyers in America®, Securities/Capital Markets Law, Corporate Compliance Law, Commercial Litigation and Litigation – Securities, 2005-2023
• Corporate Counsel Best Lawyer, Litigation
• Georgia Super Lawyers, Securities Litigation (various years through 2014), Business Litigation, 2016-2019
• Georgia Trend’s Legal Elite, Appellate Law, 2012