THE MASTER Storyteller
‘Talk to no one except Edward T.M. Garland!’
BY KENNA SIMMONS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STAN KAADY
EDWARD T.M. GARLAND, A SIXTH-GENERATION LAWYER,
and the son of attorney Reuben A. Garland—famous for his
flamboyant style and willingness to take on controversial cases—
has many stories to tell. Here’s one of them.
“I tried a robbery case once in DeKalb Superior Court,” Garland
recalls. “A man who was accused of robbing the Piggly Wiggly.
It was a big case for me—I had been practicing law for about
eight months. Right in the middle of the key examination of the
most important witnesses, right when I was cross-examining,
the courtroom doors blew open. Here came my dad in his black
Homburg hat, a Chesterfield English overcoat on, a gray double-
breasted English vest, and a gold-headed walking stick. He sat
down beside me. I proceeded to ask [the witness] questions. He
started saying, ‘Edward, ask him this. Edward, ask him that.’ He
started pulling on my coat. I was standing right beside the jury
rail—it was a small courtroom. Finally a juror said, ‘Aw, leave him
alone. He’s doing OK!’”
Garland’s father was an outsized presence in his life. On Saturdays
in his youth, cars would line up in front of the house, with people
calling on behalf of a family member who’d been arrested the night
before. He remembers going with his mother to take food to the jail,
where his father would be serving time for contempt of court. “He’d
gotten someone acquitted but had run afoul of the judge and they’d
locked him up,” Garland says. “He’d say, ‘Well, I’ve never been to jail
when my client wasn’t acquitted.’
EDWARD T.M. GARLAND
· GARLAND, SAMUEL & LOEB, PC
· CRIMINAL DEFENSE: WHITE-COLLAR
· GEORGIA SUPER LAW YERS: 2004–
2012; TOP 10: 2007, 2009–2012; TOP
100: 2006–2012
