Michael Choy, Birmingham Attorney

Overview

Michael Choy is a partner in the firm’s General Commercial Litigation Practice Group. As lead counsel, Michael has tried over 30 jury trials to verdict.

He has extensive experience trying cases on behalf of corporate and governmental clients in state and federal courts in Alabama and Georgia. In addition, he has represented national and regional broker-dealer firms and other business clients in TRO and preliminary injunction proceedings, in more than 75 extraordinary hearings, in state and federal courts involving the prosecution and defense of covenants not-to-compete and trade secret litigation. http://www.litcounsel.org/

Michael's representative trial experience includes the following: most recently, Michael tried a False Claims Act and retaliation case in the Northern District of Alabama. He has defended the City of Birmingham, and its police officers, in Section 1983 excessive force cases that have been tried to verdict. In 2012, on behalf of the City of Birmingham, Michael was successful in having a 31-year-old Consent Decree dissolved by Judge Lynwood Smith, of the Northern District of Alabama, after only twenty-two months of pre-hearing litigation. He has tried several employment trials to verdict, including a plaintiffs’ class action against the State of Alabama’s two-year college system on behalf of a class of African-American women. He has also tried other types of cases to verdict in a wide variety of industries on behalf of business clients. Michael was involved in the 150-plus securities fraud lawsuits filed against a local healthcare company in 2003, and was appointed by the federal judge overseeing the federal lawsuits as chair of the steering committee in the federal litigation. He was similarly appointed by the state court judge overseeing the state court lawsuits as chair of the state court steering committee. In 2004 and 2005, Michael was extensively involved as co-plaintiff’s counsel on behalf of the Retirement Systems of Alabama (“RSA”) in the WorldCom and Enron litigation that resulted in multi-million dollar recoveries for the RSA against several large investment banks.

While employed as in-house counsel at BellSouth (now known as AT&T), Michael tried several personal injury cases to verdict in his early years at the company. In his last four years at the company, Michael was placed in the Antitrust Group and was enrolled at Emory Law School in Atlanta for formal training in antitrust law.

Prior to joining BellSouth (South Central Bell and Southern Telephone & Telegraph Company), Michael clerked for the now retired Honorable U. W. Clemon in the Northern District of Alabama (1984-1985). Michael is a former Alabama State Bar Examiner (Pleading & Practice, 1998-2002). He served on the Alabama Ethics Commission from September 2005 until May 2011, and served as the Commission’s Chairman from 2009-2010.

Honors & Recognitions

Listed in The Best Lawyers in America®: Litigation - Labor and Employment since 2024
Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent© Peer Review Rating
Mid-South Super Lawyers, Business Litigation (2016-2019)
Alabama Super Lawyers, Business Litigation (2011-2015)
Litigation Counsel of America, Senior Fellow