Top elections lawyer starts new firm in calm before storm

“Setting up our own thing, it is very exciting,” Tyson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The response from clients and colleagues has been overwhelmingly positive. I had one lawyer friend tell me that I was braver than he was.”

Tyson joined Clark Hill in October 2024, shortly after its Atlanta office was established by a group of his colleagues from Taylor English Duma, a local firm that folded in late March after more attorney exits. He said Clark Hill is “fantastic” and being part of the large international firm was great, but he realized his specialty practice is better suited to a smaller environment.

“I think that, in a lot of ways, you don’t need to have all the infrastructure to be able to provide excellent service,” he said.

Christina Moore, who leads the attorneys in Clark Hill’s Atlanta office, said they are happy for Tyson, appreciate his contributions and look forward to collaborating with him in future.

“The climate is right for him to start this boutique litigation firm,” Moore told the AJC.

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com

Tyson and Younker, who both grew up in Cobb County and have been friends for around a decade, said technology is at a point where starting a law firm from scratch has been easy in several respects.

They said they had long thought about having their own firm but didn’t start seriously discussing it until recently. They said the timing was right, and within a few months they were ready to open their new space in an office park along Johnson Ferry Road.

Tyson and Younker, 45 and 42 respectively, are keeping their existing clients and said that helps mitigate the risk of striking out on their own. They said they do want to grow the firm in time.

Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC

Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC

Younker, who has led more than 40 trials, said many of the seasoned litigators in Atlanta are approaching retirement, leaving room for the next generation of trial and appellate experts.

“This is a good opportunity for us to step forward in that market,” he told the AJC. “We already have quite a large number of clients that we provide general representation to, so we are their one-stop shop for everything. But we’re also the kind of firm that we hope other firms can see our specialty and our ability to help and can bring us on.”

For Tyson, a special assistant attorney general in Georgia election matters, there is plenty of work on the horizon in this election year and beyond. He said political campaigns now incorporate a litigation strategy, which has become an increasingly prominent feature of elections.

“I don’t think the election and voting work is slowing down anytime soon,” he said. “Right now, if a race is close, the default is people tend to go to court. With the administration of elections, obviously in Georgia that’s not going to slow down either.”

Georgia’s congressional and legislative lines are likely to be redrawn in response to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act, which makes it harder to challenge political maps.

Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC

Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC

Tyson, first involved in redistricting litigation in 2001, said courts had drifted away from the plain meaning of the statutes designed to address intentional race discrimination by the government. He said the Supreme Court’s ruling is “a big reset” that maintains a remedy for blatant bias without extending that relief for “a partisan result or for some other kind of policy disagreement.”

“I don’t see any change for the volume of litigation, the strategy involving litigation,” he said. “I think that that’s just going to continue for the foreseeable future.”

Tyson has served as the primary special assistant attorney general in Georgia for its larger election cases, a spokesperson for Attorney General Chris Carr’s office told the AJC.

He delivered the state a win in a yearslong battle against allies of Democrat Stacey Abrams stemming from the 2018 elections and has led the state’s defense of its controversial 2021 voting law that changed rules for absentee ballots, early voting days and more.

Often working for Republicans, Tyson has also served independent redistricting commissions, including the one formed in Virginia in 2020. He said he wants to leverage his courtroom experience for a range of clients alongside Younker, who has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in a wide variety of complex civil cases.

Younker, a former felony prosecutor in several counties south of Atlanta, said he’s excited about expanding his practice with Tyson.

“As lawyers, our business is built on our name, our reputation, our integrity,” he said. “Knowing Bryan’s name, knowing his reputation, knowing his integrity, that’s really what sealed the deal for me.”