Jacquelyn Smith "Jacque" Clarke, Environmental Attorney in Atlanta, Georgia

Jacquelyn Clarke is a Partner in our Atlanta office and also serves as Lead Hiring Partner, overseeing the hiring of associate attorneys across all HBS offices while focusing on the Southeast. Jacque specializes in the defense of both health care providers and professional malpractice matters and focuses her practice on complex medical malpractice cases. Her experience includes a wide variety of areas including heart and spine surgeries, anesthesia claims, and birth trauma cases.

Since the beginning of her practice, she has defended complex professional liability cases, including those against doctors, nurses, EMTs, lawyers, engineers, and accountants. She has significant experience in wrongful death, catastrophic injury, and product liability cases.

She also works with aging services providers on issues they face including regulatory compliance, administrative hearings, and appeals. She has specialized experience in COVID-19 related claims and regulatory matters. Other areas of experience include premises liability (including at hospitals and with health care providers, suicide cases, and shooting cases), construction wrongful death cases, transportation claims involving multiple death accidents, and general liability matters.

Jacque enjoys being in the courtroom and has tried multiple cases to verdict in state and federal courts, including multiple cases to verdict as first chair trial counsel. She has been admitted pro hac vice over a dozen times across the United States in multiple jurisdictions as part of HBS’s National Trial Counsel team. She routinely defends providers, businesses, and insurers in matters with demands in excess of ten million dollars. She has unique experience on our National Trial Counsel team working with local counsel to prepare cases for trial with very short notice. She has worked with experts around the world and defended cases involving significant media attention.

Jacque earned a Juris Doctor from Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law, where she attended on full scholarship and from which she graduated in the top 10% of her class, receiving the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Service to the Law School. She was a member of the Mercer Law Review and an active leader and participant in oral advocacy teams at the trial and appellate level including national awards. She also edited the Journal of Southern Legal History—for which she now serves as the Editor in Chief and as the Board Secretary and Trustee for the Georgia Legal History Foundation, a prestigious group of legal scholars and judges in Georgia.

She is also an active participant in both the firm’s Women’s Forum and Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Committees. She volunteers in the community in several leadership roles, including multiple terms on the Alumni Council for Berry College, from which she graduated magna cum laude, served as Senior Class President, and received multiple athletic, academic, and service scholarships and awards, including an All American award in Cross Country and Track for her academic and athletic performance. In 2021 she was included on the Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch inaugural list.