Pete is a prolific youth sports coach. During his seven years at Westminster, he was named the 2012 Region 6-AA Assistant Softball Coach of the Year, and coached daughter Maggie throughout her four-year high school career.
Pete, daughter Maggie (Yale, Class of 2018), and wife Susan (GT, Class of 1993), the Firm’s Chief Paralegal and Office Manager for more than fifteen years.
At the height of the Internet’s “Spam Wars,” Pete was a featured speaker at the Federal Trade Commission’s summit on Unsolicited Commercial E-mails in Washington, D.C.
Dubbed the “Spammer Hammer” in media coverage of his legal victories, Pete posed for this tongue-in-cheek picture for the book “Spam Kings” by Brian McWilliams.
PAUL F. (“PETE”) WELLBORN III
Managing Partner/Founder
AT A GLANCE
• “Attorney of the Year” Award (Lawyers Weekly – Top Ten U.S. Attorneys)
• Victories featured in/on the Wall St. Journal, CNN, and 60 Minutes II
• “Elite Attorney” (Georgia Trend Magazine) (Top 5% of all GA Attorneys)
• “Super Lawyer” (Atlanta Magazine)
• “AV” Rating (Martindale Hubbell) (Highest Rating – Ability & Ethics)
• Legal Advisor to Governor Sonny Perdue and Senator Paul Coverdell
• Board of Directors, Georgia Technology Authority (Secretary)
• Three decades of lead counsel experience
PRACTICE DESCRIPTION
Pete Wellborn, the Firm’s founding and managing partner, is one of the most well-known attorneys in the United States. Pete’s legal victories have received worldwide publicity, from cover stories in the Wall Street Journal, Lawyers Weekly, and Boardwatch to features on Good Morning America, CNN, and 60 Minutes II.
Prior to establishing the Firm, Pete founded the Internet Law practice group at Arnall Golden Gregory, a large, multi-discipline firm in Atlanta. He was later tapped to head that firm’s Technology Law practice, overseeing the Internet Law, Intellectual Property, Venture Capital, Corporate Technology, Telecommunications, and Technology Litigation groups. Pete’s earlier career included a focus on construction litigation at Smith Currie & Hancock, medical malpractice defense at Alston & Bird, and technology litigation at Hunton & Williams, where he headed the Technology Litigation group. On April 2, 2001 – his 37th birthday – Pete founded The Wellborn Firm. With the addition soon after of fellow Georgia Tech and Mercer graduate Kelly Wallace, that firm would become Wellborn & Wallace.
REPRESENTATIVE CASES AND MATTERS
An old legal axiom advises, “Don’t hire the attorney who knows the law when you can instead hire the one who wrote the law.” Pete was instrumental in the early days of the Internet, through both legislative consulting and litigation victories, in helping to create the laws that would eventually govern what was then a wild legal frontier. At the height of the “spam wars,” Pete obtained a multimillion dollar judgement against Cyber Promotions, shutting down the most prolific sender of commercial e-mails in the world. Soon after, he obtained a series of landmark victories in which all ISP's and Internet users worldwide (rather than only his Client) were protected from the future misconduct of the defendant law-breakers. These included a $25 million judgment and Pete’s trademark “global injunction” against the “Genghis Spammer,” a Tennessee man engaged in massive identify theft via the Internet. Pete followed that with a $17 million judgment and global injunction against the “Buffalo Spammer,” a New York man engaged in similar Internet-related crimes who, on the strength of Pete’s investigation, was also convicted on related criminal charges. Pete’s career-defining wins are not limited to the technology law arena. His other noteworthy victories include dram shop (drunk driver) cases, wrongful death cases, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act cases, constitutional rights cases, construction law cases, and many other litigation-related disciplines.
EDUCATION
J.D., magna cum laude, Mercer Law School (1989)
Law Review (Class Rank: Top 5)
Moot Court Board
Member, National Moot Court Team
Member, Intrastate Moot Court Team (School’s Top Team)
Order of Barristers (Honor Society)
Brainerd Currie Society (Honor Society)
Estes Award (School’s Outstanding Appellate Advocate)
Justice, Honor Court
B.S., Information and Computer Science, with honors, Georgia Tech (1986)
President’s Scholar
Dean’s List
Secretary, Gamma Beta Phi
Member, Phi Eta Sigma
Justice, Undergraduate Judicial Board
NCAA Football
PUBLICATIONS
“Undercover Teachers” Beware: How that Fake Profile on Facebook Could Land You in the Pokey,” 63 Mercer. L. Rev. 697 (2011-2012)
“The Internet For Legal Professionals,” National Institute For Paralegal Education, 1999
“Ex Parte Contact With Former Employees of an Opposing Party,” The Litigator, 1995
“The Application of Daubert in Georgia,” Defense Bar Annual Conference Manual, 1995
“Contracting in Kuwait And Saudi Arabia,” Mercer Law Review, 1991