Attorney Biography
Karlise Yvette Grier is the managing attorney of Grier Law Office, P.C., an Atlanta law firm that concentrates in the areas of adoption law, divorce law, and family law. Ms. Grier is an experienced trial attorney and child-welfare lawyer. During her legal career, Ms. Grier has litigated hundreds of cases and participated in several reported cases, including her most recent appellate victory of Frazier v. Frazier, 280 Ga. 687, 631 S.E.2d 666 (2006), a divorce case in which the Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the judgment Ms. Grier obtained for her client after a trial of the case.
Ms. Grier has several years of complex litigation experience. She has tried contested matters - involving issues such as child custody, child support, alimony, division of marital property, and termination of parental rights - before both judges and juries in Georgia's superior, state, and juvenile courts. She has extensive experience in resolving contested divorce matters. Ms. Grier is also an experienced domestic adoption attorney and has successfully represented clients in interstate adoptions, private/independent adoptions, step-parent adoptions, relative adoptions, and agency adoptions.
Ms. Grier was appointed to serve as a part-time Magistrate Court judge in Fulton County in May 2006, and she has previously served as a Judicial Officer in the Fulton County Superior Court Family Division. From March 2000 until June 2005, Ms. Grier served as a Judge Pro Hac Vice in the former City Court of Atlanta (“Traffic Court”).
After completing law school, Ms. Grier began her legal career as a commercial litigation associate at Kilpatrick & Cody (now known as Kilpatrick Stockton LLP). Thereafter, Ms. Grier served as an Assistant Solicitor General for the State Court of Fulton County, where she prosecuted individuals for misdemeanor criminal offenses, including family violence cases. After leaving the Solicitor General's office, Ms. Grier became Of Counsel to the law firm of William R. Jenkins & Associates, where she represented the Fulton County Department of Family and Children Services in the Juvenile Court of Fulton County, in deprivation and termination of parental rights proceedings. The cases she litigated often involved issues of severe child abuse and neglect, including medical neglect, sexual molestation, and permanent physical injuries. Ms. Grier opened her own law firm in February 2000, and established Grier Law Office, P.C. in 2004.
Ms. Grier's professional activities are numerous. She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, a Barrister in the Charles Longstreet Weltner Family Law Inn of Court, and a member of the Collaborative Law Institute of Georgia. Ms. Grier served as the President of the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys ("GABWA") in 2001. Ms. Grier was appointed to the State Bar of Georgia's Board of Governors in September 2000, where she continues to represent the Atlanta Circuit in Post 30. She also currently sits as a trustee on the Board of Trustees for the Institute of Continuing Legal Education in Georgia. Ms. Grier is a co-founder of the Civil Pro Bono-Family Law Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating incarcerated mothers about their rights and responsibilities as parents. During her tenure as President of GABWA, Ms. Grier served on a volunteer basis as the Founding Director of GABWA’s Sister-to-Sister Mentoring Project, a Fulton County Juvenile Court program for at-risk girls.
In addition to her private practice and judicial work, Ms. Grier also speaks to groups and trains other attorneys, regarding family law matters, adoption issues, and trial techniques. Her speaking engagements have included a television appearance on The Laymen's Lawyer to discuss divorce issues, and presentations for Roots adoption agency, the Giving Tree adoption agency, the Fulton County Department of Family of Children Services, and the Georgia State University School of Social work. Ms. Grier has also presented at accreditation seminars for Prevent Child Abuse Georgia (formerly the Georgia Council on Child Abuse) and at continuing legal education seminars for various law-related organizations. For the past several years, Ms. Grier has served as an adjunct faculty member for the Emory University Kessler/Eidson Trial Techniques Program.
Ms. Grier received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science from Dartmouth College in 1986, and her law degree from the Emory University School of Law in 1992. She was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in that same year.