Ray Lerer (Of Counsel)
Ray Lerer joined The Federal Firm in 2012, but his experience in the world of law began much earlier.
Fluent in Spanish, Lerer was raised in Havana, Cuba, but immigrated with his European parents to the U.S. in 1960, when he was 8 years old, and became a lawyer in 1977, graduating from Emory University's School of Law in 1977. His undergraduate degree is from Vanderbilt University, where he graduated magna cum laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
He served as a judicial clerk for Judge G. Ernest Tidwell in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and the Superior Court of Fulton County from 1977-1980.
He was an intern at the State of Georgia's Attorney General's office during law school and then retuned full time in 1980, where as a Deputy Attorney General he served as director of the Commercial Transactions and Litigation Division and section chief over Real Property, Construction, Transportation and State Authorities. His other areas of responsibility and practice included representing state agency boards, including the Georgia Department of Transportation, Brain and Spinal Injury Trust Fund Commission (for which he received a Distinguished Service Award) and the State Board of Medical Examiners.
During his 32-plus-year tenure, Lerer also handled litigation involving first-amendment and constitutional issues, including a controversial case in 1996 (Coleman versus Miller) in which the plaintiff alleged that it was racially discriminatory for the State to display the Confederate battle emblem on the Georgia state flag..
Lerer retired at the end of June 2012, but soon yearned to return to work. He landed at The Federal Firm in late October, where the ability to put his background in bilingual and disability cases were the main attraction.
"When I retired from the Attorney General's office, [Keegan's] firm was on mind because I knew he and his firm worked with people who have been traumatically injured," says Lerer, adding another reason he was attracted to F&H was the chance to put his bilingual ability to work. "I knew the firm had some bilingual work and those two things attracted me to it. With the State, I hadn't been able to do a lot of work using the Spanish language."
Lerer also will help manage some of the cases other attorneys in the firm are working on.
"We're delighted to have Ray join our firm," says Keegan Federal. "He will bring invaluable experience to many of our most challenging cases, especially in those areas dealing with government or rules and regulations."
Lerer is a member of the Lawyers Club of Atlanta and the St. Thomas More Legal Society, and serves as a volunteer for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and Catholic Charities of Atlanta. He also regularly plays guitar for patients at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home, a hospice for terminally-ill cancer patients in downtown Atlanta. He returned to his homeland of Cuba for a 10-day trip with the medical mission group Caring Partners International for the first time in November 2011.
He lives in Vinings with his wife, Khaki, and the couple has an adult daughter, Catherine, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and works in the fashion industry.
Fluent in Spanish, Lerer was raised in Havana, Cuba, but immigrated with his European parents to the U.S. in 1960, when he was 8 years old, and became a lawyer in 1977, graduating from Emory University's School of Law in 1977. His undergraduate degree is from Vanderbilt University, where he graduated magna cum laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
He served as a judicial clerk for Judge G. Ernest Tidwell in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and the Superior Court of Fulton County from 1977-1980.
He was an intern at the State of Georgia's Attorney General's office during law school and then retuned full time in 1980, where as a Deputy Attorney General he served as director of the Commercial Transactions and Litigation Division and section chief over Real Property, Construction, Transportation and State Authorities. His other areas of responsibility and practice included representing state agency boards, including the Georgia Department of Transportation, Brain and Spinal Injury Trust Fund Commission (for which he received a Distinguished Service Award) and the State Board of Medical Examiners.
During his 32-plus-year tenure, Lerer also handled litigation involving first-amendment and constitutional issues, including a controversial case in 1996 (Coleman versus Miller) in which the plaintiff alleged that it was racially discriminatory for the State to display the Confederate battle emblem on the Georgia state flag..
Lerer retired at the end of June 2012, but soon yearned to return to work. He landed at The Federal Firm in late October, where the ability to put his background in bilingual and disability cases were the main attraction.
"When I retired from the Attorney General's office, [Keegan's] firm was on mind because I knew he and his firm worked with people who have been traumatically injured," says Lerer, adding another reason he was attracted to F&H was the chance to put his bilingual ability to work. "I knew the firm had some bilingual work and those two things attracted me to it. With the State, I hadn't been able to do a lot of work using the Spanish language."
Lerer also will help manage some of the cases other attorneys in the firm are working on.
"We're delighted to have Ray join our firm," says Keegan Federal. "He will bring invaluable experience to many of our most challenging cases, especially in those areas dealing with government or rules and regulations."
Lerer is a member of the Lawyers Club of Atlanta and the St. Thomas More Legal Society, and serves as a volunteer for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and Catholic Charities of Atlanta. He also regularly plays guitar for patients at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home, a hospice for terminally-ill cancer patients in downtown Atlanta. He returned to his homeland of Cuba for a 10-day trip with the medical mission group Caring Partners International for the first time in November 2011.
He lives in Vinings with his wife, Khaki, and the couple has an adult daughter, Catherine, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and works in the fashion industry.