Michelle Ator serves as Vice Chair and leads the firm’s Litigation Section. As head of the firm’s Medical Malpractice Group, her practice focuses on representing doctors, hospitals and other medical care providers in malpractice litigation.
Michelle has been recognized by Arkansas Business as one of the 250 Most Influential Arkansans and also in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Individuals. As noted in Chambers, she is a “highly respected medical malpractice defense lawyer… polished and very good in court.” She was previously named “Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers in the area of medical malpractice defense and has been rated by Super Lawyers as one of the “Top 50 Lawyers in Arkansas” and “Top 50 Women Lawyers of the Mid-South.” Martindale-Hubbell has rated Michelle as AV “Preeminent” – the highest rating for ability and ethical standards.
Michelle has also been the recipient of a number of professional awards, including the Vincent Foster, Jr. Outstanding Lawyer Award, the Pulaski County Bar Association’s President’s Award, an Ike Scott Fellowship by the Pulaski County Bar Foundation and the Arkansas Bar Foundation Award for Excellence in Legal Writing.
Michelle is a Past President of the Pulaski County Bar Association and remains actively involved in service to the bar and community. She has served as a Special Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court and for two terms as an appointed member of the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Civil Practice. She is a Master of the Bench and Past President of the Henry Woods American Inn of Court. She has also acted as trial skills faculty at the American Board of Trial Advocates National Trial College. She is currently serving as Chancellor for the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church. Michelle is a Fellow and current Chair of the Arkansas Chapter of the American College of Trial Lawyers. She is an Associate of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). She is a member of DRI and the upcoming President of the Arkansas Association of Defense Counsel.
Before joining the firm, Michelle served as a Division Chief in the Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, where she primarily tried rape, child abuse, domestic abuse and homicide cases.
She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado, where she was a President’s Leadership Class Scholar, and Juris Doctor with Honors from the UALR William H. Bowen School of Law, where she worked as an Associate Editor on the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Journal.
Michelle is licensed to practice in Arkansas state courts, federal courts in Arkansas, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and before the United States Supreme Court.
