Lucian Lincoln Wood Jr. is a former Georgia lawyer who spent most of his career in Atlanta. The public name is L. Lin Wood or Lin Wood. The Eleventh Circuit captioned him L. Lin Wood Jr. Associated Press, writing on July 5, 2023, said he had been licensed in Georgia since 1977 and had asked the State Bar to retire that license. This page is the life and career path. Chapters take up the named clients, the 2020 cases, and the retirement.
Life
About Lucian Lincoln Wood Jr.
Identity confidence: high. This is the Atlanta attorney Lucian Lincoln “Lin” Wood Jr. (also L. Lin Wood), admitted to the Georgia Bar in 1977 and listed as retired in July 2023. Captions and degrees come from court dockets, a 2014 Attorney at Law Magazine interview, Mercer alumni reporting of a 2016 gift, Associated Press and CNBC on the license, and the Eleventh Circuit opinion in Wood v. Raffensperger. Portrait is a Wikimedia Commons file (Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0), not a generated face. This is not another public Lin Wood.
Upbringing and education
A September 24, 2014, Attorney at Law Magazine interview is an on-the-record profile. It places Wood in high school as editor-in-chief of the school newspaper and a baseball pitcher. It states that when he was 16 his father killed his mother “in a blackout following years of alcoholism and domestic violence,” that Wood raised funds so his father would have a defense lawyer, and that he then attended undergraduate and law school at Mercer University in Macon on scholarships, student loans, and part-time work. Those are the magazine’s sentences about him, not a reconstructed childhood novel.
Mercer University’s own February 5, 2016, gift announcement, as reprinted by TaxProf Blog, identified him as class of 1974 in the College of Liberal Arts and class of 1977 in the law school. Georgia Public Broadcasting later described the same two degrees. Secondary encyclopedias add a 1952 birth in Raleigh and a Macon upbringing from age three; this journal uses the Mercer years and the 2014 interview as Fact and does not upgrade an encyclopedia birth date.
Into the practice
The same 2014 interview says he began in Macon at Jones, Cork, Miller & Benton, moved to Atlanta in 1979 to practice with Paul M. Hawkins at Freeman & Hawkins, and spent most of his first 19 years on medical-malpractice cases. It says he tried 25 cases to a jury verdict in his first six years. From 2006 to 2011 he practiced at Powell Goldstein, later Bryan Cave, then returned to a boutique under his own name. Associated Press later treated 1977 as the year of Georgia admission.
In 1996 he took a referral to represent Richard Jewell. That case is a separate chapter. The interview says the Jewell work trained him “in cases tried before the court of public opinion” and that he later represented, among others, John and Patsy Ramsey, former U.S. Rep. Gary Condit, and presidential candidates including Herman Cain. In 2016 Mercer announced a $1 million L. Lin Wood Fund for the Enhancement of Mercer Law School and said a trial courtroom would be named for him.
Documented roles
- Name. Lucian Lincoln Wood Jr.; public professional name L. Lin Wood / Lin Wood. Court caption: L. Lin Wood Jr. 11th Cir. Dec. 5, 2020.
- Education (organizational / alumni primary as reprinted). Mercer University, 1974 (College of Liberal Arts); Mercer University School of Law, 1977. Mercer News, Feb. 5, 2016, as quoted by TaxProf; GPB, Jan. 26, 2021.
- Georgia Bar. Licensed 1977; directory updated to retired on or about July 5, 2023. AP, July 5, 2023; CNBC, July 5, 2023.
- Atlanta practice. Medical malpractice, then defamation and First Amendment work from 1996. Attorney at Law Magazine, Sept. 24, 2014.
- Named clients (public). Richard Jewell; John and Patsy Ramsey and later Burke Ramsey; Gary Condit; Herman Cain; Nicholas Sandmann; Kyle Rittenhouse (initial team). Chapters cite the suits.
- 2020 election litigation. Plaintiff in Wood v. Raffensperger, N.D. Ga. Nos. 1:20-cv-04651-SDG and 1:20-cv-05155-TCB. Relief denied. See the 2020 chapter.
- Fulton County 2022–23. Testified before a special-purpose grand jury; later listed as a state witness; not a defendant in the RICO indictment. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he had not “flipped” on President Trump. AJC, Sept. 20, 2023.
What this site is
It is a sourced journal of a public lawyer: life, clients the record names, the 2020 cases as the courts wrote them, and the license retirement. Fact and Opinion are separated. It is not a court. It is not affiliated with Wood, the State Bar of Georgia, Mercer University, or any campaign. It does not invent quotes, crimes, or heroics. Failed suits and the retirement stay on the page because they are public record. They are not written as a sneer.