Athens, Ga. – Michael M. Raeber, a partner in the Business Litigation Group at King & Spalding in Atlanta, has been named Executive Director of Legal Affairs at the University of Georgia by President Jere W. Morehead. The appointment is effective February 1, 2014.
“I am very pleased that we have hired an exceptionally gifted lawyer to lead the Office of Legal Affairs,” said Morehead. “Mike Raeber is recognized as one of the most outstanding lawyers in this state, and he will be a key advisor in my administration.”
Raeber joined the King & Spalding law firm in 1994 and became a partner in 2002. A specialist in complex corporate litigation, he has served as lead counsel in cases involving real estate, insurance coverage, employment, accounting, and contractual interpretation. Before joining King & Spalding, he clerked for Justice George T. Smith of the Georgia Supreme Court and Judge Stanley F. Birch, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Raeber’s multifaceted legal career has included the representation of Fortune 500 companies; appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eleventh Circuits; serving as trial counsel to a major manufacturing company which achieved one of the largest insurance arbitration awards in U.S. history; serving as trial counsel for a Big Four accounting firm; and serving as a pro bono habeas corpus counsel to a wrongly convicted prisoner, which ultimately resulted in the release of the client.
“I’ve worked with Mike Raeber on several complex and sensitive legal matters,” said Larry Thompson, Sibley Professor in Corporate and Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law, who is presently on leave while serving as executive vice president of government affairs, general counsel and corporate secretary of PepsiCo, Inc. “Mike is a superb lawyer. He’s very strategic and practical. Mike knows how to solve legal problems as well as prevent them. UGA is very fortunate to have a lawyer of Mike’s caliber looking out for its legal interests.”
Raeber is a 1993 cum laude graduate of the UGA School of Law, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Georgia Law Review, and holds an undergraduate degree in political science from Sewanee: The University of the South. While at Sewanee, he served as chair of the Student Disciplinary Committee; was afforded membership in the Order of Gownsmen, an academic honor society; and was a member of the varsity basketball team, serving as captain his senior year.
Raeber was named to Georgia Trend magazine’s 2013 Legal Elite and consistently has been recognized as one of Georgia’s top business litigators by Thomson-Reuters’ “Georgia Super Lawyers” magazine. He is a fellow of the Lawyers Foundation of Georgia and is a member of the Lawyers Club of Atlanta.
Since 2009, Raeber has served on the board of KIPP Metro Atlanta, which operates seven charter schools in Atlanta as part of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), a non-profit national network of high-performing public charter schools serving low-income students in underserved neighborhoods.
Raeber was selected after a national search conducted by an eight-member university committee chaired by Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge, the associate dean for faculty development and Herman E. Talmadge Chair in the UGA School of Law. The position has been filled on an interim basis by S. Elizabeth Bailey, associate director of legal affairs, since July 1, 2013.
“I am deeply honored and excited about the opportunity to return to Athens and serve an institution that has played such an important role in my life,” said Raeber. “I’m grateful for the confidence President Morehead and the administration have placed in me, and I look forward to working with them to help protect and enhance the reputation and interests of the University.”
He and his wife, Carrie Dieterle Raeber (ABJ 1991), have three young children.
