ISLN: 907613655
Member
Email: click here to contact

Practice areas

• Family law
• Construction law disputes
• Commercial litigation
• Business litigation
• Personal injury
• Real property
• Contracts
• Wills
• Estates
• Real estate closings
• Traffic violations

Admitted

• Georgia, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia, 1973
• U.S. Court of Military Appeals
• U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, U.S. District Court, Middle District of Georgia, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth and Eleventh Circuits, 1981
• Virginia Supreme Court and all Trial Courts of Virginia, 2006
• U.S. District Court, Western District of Virginia and U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Western District of Virginia, 2009

Education

• University of Georgia, J.D.

Associations & memberships

• Lexington-Rockbridge, Buena Vista (President, 2008; Secretary-Treasurer, 2009) and Alleghany-Bath-Highland Bar Associations
• Virginia State Bar
• State Bar of Georgia
• Atlanta Bar Association
• The Charles Longstreet Weltner Family Law Inn of Court, Atlanta, Georgia (Member, Master Level, 2002 – 2007)

Biographical details

I have achieved an AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rating by Martindale-Hubbell®, the highest recognition possible in the legal industry, for my professionalism and ethics. After a successful and enjoyable career of 32 years of law practice, during which I gained broadly based experience and expertise from my legal career in Atlanta, Georgia, my wife and I moved to Lexington, Virginia in late 2005. There, I stated a new and exciting phase of my legal career in a small, rural community and its surrounding area, with emphasis on a more varied, general law practice, building on my prior experience. I was admitted to law practice in Virginia in January, 2006 before all Virginia State Courts, and since then I have been practicing primarily as a Virginia lawyer, forming Donald Jackson Ellis, PLLC in Lexington, Virginia, and continuing as "Of Counsel" to my former Georgia law practice founded in 1991, Ellis, Funk, P.C. Educational background at The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee (graduating in 1970) and at the University of Georgia Law School, Athens, Georgia (graduating in 1973): Phi Beta Kappa; Omicron Delta Kappa; Delta Tau Delta; Phi Delta Phi. Chairman, Honor Court, and Varsity Baseball, and graduated with honors from The University of the South. While in Law School at the University of Georgia, I also was a Law Clerk for two years to Jay Cook and John Noell, Attorneys-at-Law, in Athens, Georgia. I graduated in the top ten percent of my law school class at Georgia Law School, and with honors. I first went to work as an associate litigation attorney at Troutman Sanders Lockerman and Ashmore, Atlanta, Georgia for most of 1973, and was with that law firm again from 1977 to 1979. The time away from there was spent in military service from late 1973 to late 1977 as a Staff Judge Advocate in the U.S. Air Force, where I tried 40 cases over 4 years (as a prosecuting attorney or as defense counsel or as counsel for individuals or as administrative hearing officer in administrative cases). I was awarded the Air Force Commendation Medal for Outstanding Trial Work in a series of related felony prosecutions occurring in 1977. I returned to Atlanta, GA in 1977, rejoining Troutman Sanders as a litigation attorney for two years, and then left in 1979 to pursue my own law practice. From 1979 through 2005, I have practiced to a high standard of law, working in small law firm settings, devoted to personal service and hard work for individual clients and business entities. I had an initial concentration on civil litigation, commercial law and bankruptcy matters, tort defense and also plaintiff's tort claims, and in representing building material suppliers and general contractors in contract and business disputes. Over the last 20 years of practice in Atlanta, I developed a specialty in family law and related civil litigation, in often complicated and disputed cases with substantial incomes and highly valued assets involving divorce and including contested custody, alimony, support, property issues, and related family law disputes of all sorts, plus adoptions. I also have written numerous wills and trusts and handled trust and estate matters in metropolitan courts in and around Atlanta through 2005. My small firm experience included being an initial partner in Greenfield, Ellis & Bost, P.C., then forming Donald J. Ellis, P.C. as a solo practice for three years, and merging that office in 1991 into a law firm now existing and known as Ellis, Funk, P.C., in Atlanta, Georgia. I was recognized as a Georgia Super Lawyer in the specialty of Family Law in 2005 and 2006 by Law & Politics, publisher of Atlanta Magazine. Certified previously by the Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution, I served for many years as privately retained and/or court-appointed mediator and/or arbitrator in civil litigation disputes, formerly serving on the mediation panels of the Superior and State Courts of Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett Courts in Georgia. While in Atlanta, Georgia, I was active as pro bono legal counsel and Trustee, from 1994 to 2008, for ChildSpring International, Inc. (which provides free medical care in the United States for children from overseas). I was also an active member of First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. Now I am active in civic matters in Lexington, Virginia, serving as pro bono legal counsel and also as a Member of the Board of Directors of Rockbridge Area Habitat for Humanity, 2006 to the present (Chairman from 2007 – 2009, and as Vice-Chair, 2009—); Member, and President in 2008 and Secretary-Treasurer, 2009 of the Lexington-Rockbridge-Buena Vista Bar Association. Member: The Allegheny-Bath-Highland Bar Association; Member, Board of Directors, Blue Ridge Legal Services, Inc. (which provides pro bono legal services in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia) from January, 2009 to the present; active member at R.E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church, including co-chair of Christian Outreach Committee; member of Lexington Sunrise Rotary Club, 2007—, serving in 2009 and 2010 as co-chair of Annual Balloon Rally and 4th of July Celebration held at Virginia Military Institute's parade ground.

Military service

• Captain and Assistant Staff Judge Advocate in the United States Air Force, serving at Webb AFB, TX, 1973 – 1977