Retired Atlanta defamation attorney L. Lin Wood must pay three of his former colleagues $4.5 million after defaming them to thousands of his social media followers, a jury in Atlanta has decided.
Wood, whose theories about fraud during the 2020 presidential election saw him banned from the social media platform then known as Twitter, repeatedly accused the three attorneys who worked in his Atlanta law firm of being criminal extortionists. The attorneys – Nicole Wade, Jonathan Grunberg and Taylor Wilson – have been in a yearslong battle with Wood over client fees since leaving his firm in February 2020.
The jury found that Wood’s comments about his former colleagues, published on the Telegram app in 2021, were at least negligent. Shortly before suing Wood and his firm in August 2020, Wade, Grunberg and Wilson offered to settle their client fee grievance against him for $1.25 million.
“We’re just very thankful that a federal jury took so much time out of their lives to hear us out and were able to reach this result on our behalf,” Wade told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Wood’s attorneys in the defamation case declined to comment.
The trial against Wood began on Aug. 7 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Jurors awarded Wade, Grunberg and Wilson $3.75 million in compensation and $750,000 in attorney fees.
Drew Beal and Milinda Brown, who represent Wade, Grunberg and Wilson, said they’re happy with the verdict and look forward to continuing with the larger client fee case against Wood in Fulton County Superior Court. Brown said she’s “thrilled that the jury recognized that our clients are well-respected and ethical attorneys.”
“This is a very large verdict for defamation cases in the state of Georgia, especially against a very accomplished defamation attorney,” Beal added.
The trial follows a ruling in March that Wood’s comments were false and defamatory. U.S. District Judge Michael L. Brown noted in an order at the time that Wood encouraged his Telegram followers to file complaints against Wade, Grunberg and Wilson with the State Bar of Georgia, claiming they should be disbarred.
The jurors had to determine if Wood was liable for damages.
Wood testified at trial that he felt compelled to speak out publicly against Wade, Grunberg and Wilson in 2021 when he was vying for election as the chair of South Carolina’s Republican Party. He said he was getting “skewered” in the election and blamed that on the “salacious” allegations by his former colleagues that he refused to pay them their share of client fees, among other things.
“You get penalized when you speak the truth,” Wood told the jury. “People don’t want to hear it. I spoke out to defend myself. Sometimes the truth feels like a weapon.”
Wood’s dispute with Wade, Grunberg and Wilson formed part of the State Bar of Georgia’s investigation of Wood’s conduct. The state bar agreed to end its investigation when Wood gave up his law license in July 2023. Wood told the AJC that he was not licensed to practice law outside Georgia and had retired.
During his testimony, Wood said he had grown to despise the legal system that for decades he loved being a part of. Wood’s high-profile clients included Centennial Olympic Park hero Richard Jewell. Jewell’s lawsuit against the AJC, which had been the first to report Jewell was a suspect, was dismissed in 2011 after an appeals court ruled the newspaper’s reporting was substantially correct at the time of publication.
“I loved fighting for truth and justice,” Wood testified. “The legal system is corrupt. And it’s evil. It’s not fair to people.”
Wood’s public comments about his former colleagues also led to him being sanctioned by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is handling the ongoing client fee dispute. In June 2023, Wood was held in contempt and fined $5,000 for violating a 2020 court order that barred him from disparaging Wade, Grunberg and Wilson. Wood had challenged the nondisparagement order but it was upheld by the Georgia Court of Appeals in February 2022.
McAfee also made Wood pay his former colleagues more than $42,000 in attorney fees in relation to the contempt finding, and warned Wood that further sanctions would follow if he continued to publicly bad-mouth Wade, Grunberg and Wilson.
The three lawyers claimed they left Wood’s law firm because of his erratic and threatening behavior toward them. They have set up their own firm specializing in defamation cases.
Together with Wood, the three attorneys represented several plaintiffs in high-profile cases, including British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth in his libel case against businessman Elon Musk (whose enterprises include X, formerly known as Twitter). They also represented Kentucky high school student Nicholas Sandmann.
Wade, Grunberg and Wilson alleged in part that Wood refused to pay them their share of fees after Sandmann settled claims against various media companies.
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