Biography:
Patrick J. Ballard founded this firm in 2000 with a strong sense of duty to help the injured and vulnerable. His civil trial practice focuses on personal injury, including auto accidents, trucking accidents and construction accidents; wrongful death, worker’s compensation, medical malpractice and products liability. He provides significant counsel to construction companies, homeowners and contractors. He also serves small businesses in the areas of corporate formation, contracts and litigation.
Education and Professional Background
A 1976 graduate of Texas A&M with a degree in animal science, Patrick Ballard worked as a ranch and boarding stable manager before becoming a carpenter, cabinet maker and remodeling contractor.
In 1996, he earned his Juris Doctor from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University, where he attended on a full Presidential Merit Scholarship.
For four years he worked at Tipler Law Offices in Birmingham, where he had clerked during law school. While there, he handled several complex product liability cases against large defendants.
Licenses and Professional Associations
He is licensed to practice in all Alabama state courts, the U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Middle and Northern Districts of Alabama, the Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
He is a member of the Birmingham Bar Association, where he was Chairman of the Electronic Filing Protocols Committee, was a past member of the Executive Committee and President of the Solo / Small Firm Section in 2004. He also is a member of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America; and the Alabama Trial Lawyers Association, where is on the Executive Committee and has served on the Board of Governors from 2003 to the present. He also is a member of the Birmingham Chapter of Inns of Court.
While in law school, he was a member of the Christian Legal Society, serving as President in 1994-1995; and the Cordell Hull Speakers Forum, serving as Vice Chair in 1995-1996. He also was a member of the Moot Court Board and the American Journal of Trial Advocacy.
Community Service
Patrick Ballard also is highly committed to community service. Since 2000, he has been a member of the Board of Directors and Secretary of Children's Dance Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to making dance education available free of charge to under-advantaged and handicapped children. Dance instructors and musicians go into low-income neighborhoods to teach dance to children whose parents would not be able to afford fee-based instruction. Instructors and musicians also teach dance to children with physical, mental and/or emotional disabilities of all types. Although Patrick Ballard can't dance and did not send either of his children to dance school, he is a strong advocate of arts education and equal opportunity. He finds this is one way of putting his beliefs in this area into action.
Since 2004, Patrick Ballard has been a member of Operation New Birmingham (ONB), a partnership of businessmen, civic leaders and city government working to revitalize Birmingham, with a particular focus on development and redevelopment of the downtown/city center area. This issue is of paramount importance to him because he recently bought and renovated a 100-year-old building in downtown Birmingham that was on the verge of collapse after sitting vacant for nearly 20 years. The building is now home to his office, his family and three other tenants.
Patrick Ballard also is working to improve the plight of the homeless. Since 2005, he has been a member of Operation New Birmingham - Community Advisory Committee Task Force on Homelessness. This group meets once a month to develop and implement meaningful, practical ways to reduce homelessness and/or help the homeless, particularly those living in and around the downtown area. In particular, he has been working with metro area municipal judges to develop community-service alternatives to jail and fines as penalties for misdemeanor violations committed by homeless people. The task force found that many people who were homeless or on the verge of being homeless attempt to "escape" unpayable fines or jail sentences by "disappearing" into the homeless population in the downtown Birmingham area. When offered the chance to work off their sentences through supervised community service, many accept it as a chance to re-enter mainstream life. The task force also has been working on ways to help homeless people obtain state-issued photo identification cards, which has turned out to be a surprising (and surprisingly difficult to overcome) obstacle to homeless persons who are trying to re-enter mainstream society.
Patrick Ballard is a member of Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Birmingham, where he is active in lay pastoral duties, plays lead guitar in the worship band and has served as trustee since 1999.
Reported Cases
Hannah v. Gregg Bland & Berry, Inc., 840 So.2d 839 ( Ala. 2002); Chapman v. Smith, SC No. 1011863, 2004 WL 1008440 ( Ala., May 7, 2004).
Pat Ballard is fluent in Spanish. Se habla Español.
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Patrick J. Ballard 
