Arkansas

Quattlebaum Grooms & Tull maintains a physical presence in Little Rock and Springdale, Arkansas. The law firm was founded in 2000 and offers a full range of legal services including regulatory advice, estate planning and transactional services. Since their founding, they have grown to become a litigation powerhouse in the region, serving a vast range of clients, from individuals to corporations, and every size organization in between, public and private.

Distinguished litigator E.B. “Chip” Chiles IV represented Simmons Bank, Trustee of the Heartland Bank Liquidating Trust in an action regarding three loans that totaled around $15 million. The loans were to be transferred to defendants using three hotels as collateral. However, the defendants misappropriated the hotels without the knowledge of Heartland Bank, using the hotels as collateral for additional loans from another institution. The other institution then foreclosed and gained possession of the hotels. The court ruled summary judgement in favor of the client. Chad Pekron, another key individual at the firm, represented Arkansas Term Limits in a challenge to an attempt to remove the Arkansas Term Limits Amendment from the 2018 General Election ballot. The challenge specifically called out the ballot title of the amendment and the sufficiency of signatures gathered in support of the ballot. The action was filed in the Arkansas Supreme Court and resulted in the disqualification of the proposed initiative. The court ruled that the gathered signatures were invalid and therefore should not have been counted. Acclaimed founding member Steven Quattlebaum’s primary areas of expertise include complex business, toxic tort and product liability litigation. Johnson and Johnson is one of his more well-known clients, having served as trial counsel for the company in a case in which13,000 plaintiffs accuse the client of selling products containing talc products, specifically its baby powder. The plaintiffs alleged that these talc products caused cancer. He is also serving on a multi-district litigation trial team for the company in another product liability claim, alleging defective artificial hip implants. John Tull III is another notable founding member of the firm, with significant experience in many litigation practice areas. He represented Tegna in an appellate case before the Arkansas Supreme Court. The appeal claims that the client’s right to free speech was violated when the Circuit Court of Pulaski County banned the company from airing ads critical of a justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court. A preliminary injunction was obtained by the justice in the Circuit Court of Pulaski County which prohibited the media from publishing the advertisement through the election date on the basis that these advertisements were defamatory. The restrictions imposed by the injunction expired during the appeal pendency, and so all issues became moot and the appeal was dismissed.