Bill Leonard is one of the founding partners of Continuum Legal Group. He has worked in commercial litigation for over four decades. Bill helps businesses and their owners, managers, investors, and professional advisors assert and protect their legal rights and investments.
Bill has extensive experience in litigation involving securities and investments; liability of directors, officers, managers, and partners of businesses; shareholder and member rights and fiduciary duties; accountant and auditor liability; law firm liability; and banking law. His experience includes class actions, lawsuits in federal and state courts in many different states, and arbitrations. He is also a trained mediator and has served as an arbitrator for securities disputes. He conducts internal investigations into potential wrongdoing by officers, directors, and employees of corporations. He has represented officers, directors, accountants, brokers, and other professionals in investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Stock Exchange, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and the Department of Justice. His experience also includes a wide variety of corporate disputes over contracts and alleged intentional or negligent wrongdoing.
Bill believes that in complex litigation a lawyer should apply good judgment to determine what needs to be done without wasting the client’s money on unnecessary tasks.
Bill is married and has four adult children and three grandchildren. When not practicing law, he strives to become a decent golfer and enjoys occasional long-weekend backpacking trips on the Appalachian Trail.
Practice Highlights
- Fiduciary litigation in several contexts, such as the representation of investors or company officers, directors, employees, and professional advisors in securities fraud litigation and lawsuits alleging breach of fiduciary duty, waste, and conflicting interest transactions
- Counsel to parties in litigation involving insurance coverage, restrictive covenants, tax sharing agreements, mergers and acquisitions, computer software, contract breaches, and other business disputes
- Representation of shareholders in asserting dissenters’ rights in connection with corporate mergers and asset sales
- Investigated and asserted claims as counsel to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation against directors, officers, and attorneys of failed financial institutions in several states
- As counsel to the National Credit Union Administration, led the investigation and assertion of claims against directors, officers, and attorneys of two Massachusetts credit unions, including uncovering the largest real estate fraud in United States credit union history
- Appointed by federal judges as counsel to the Receiver in two Ponzi-scheme lawsuits brought by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission
Education
- University of North Carolina School of Law, J.D. with honors, 1979
- Auburn University, B.S. with highest honor, 1976
Bar Admissions
- Georgia
Court Admissions
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
- U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia
- U.S. District Court, Middle District of Georgia
- U.S. District Court, Southern District of Georgia
- Supreme Court of Georgia
- Court of Appeals of Georgia
Rankings and Recognition
- Best Lawyers in America, 2017-2023
- Georgia Super Lawyers, 2009-2023
Speaking
Bill has spoken on several occasions at American Bar Association meetings and Georgia Continuing Legal Education seminars, primarily addressing legal ethics.