Mark Ledbetter, an AV Rated attorney in The Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory since 1984, has had an active trial practice for thirty years, during which career he has handled cases in the state and federal trial and appellate courts in the region.

He has handled cases involving an ejection seat failure in an A-10 attack bomber, an Air Force contract worker injured while handling a cruise missile, riverboat accidents, all-terrain vehicles, farm equipment, elevator accidents, explosions, electrocutions, recreational equipment, auto defects, workplace or job accidents, medical malpractice, defective drugs, eighteen-wheeler and other accident claims. On a limited basis, he handles class action cases for the plaintiff.

In representing injured people and their families in the region, he has obtained seven-figure verdicts and settlements for clients in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Missouri on numerous occasions. Several of these verdicts and settlements, while confidential in name and amount, were among the largest recovered in the jurisdiction where they were obtained. All cases are handled on a contingency fee, as no fee is due unless a favorable outcome is reached.

His ground-breaking work in the area of transportation safety in Chadwick, et al. v. Navistar, an Arkansas case involving a school bus accident in which nine children were injured, was featured in a CNN-TIME Impact Special on School Bus Safety, aired in 1997-1998, which focused on the need for laws protecting children riding in large school buses with seatbelts. He has given talks to parent-teacher organizations on the subject and was instrumental in the adoption by the National P.T.A. of a resolution favoring the universal usage of seatbelts on school buses across America.

He has appeared on local television as a guest commentator on school bus safety and has collaborated with a CNN senior producer on such diverse legal topics as airbags and sovereign immunity. As an active Democrat, he was a guest on Memphis radio station WREC AM 600 in July, 2004, with host, Mike Fleming, to debate political positions with the show host.

He has given lectures on product safety to senior students at the University of Memphis Department of Mechanical Engineering for several years and at the University of Tennessee Department of Rehabilitation Engineering on numerous occasions, with a view toward explaining the positive role of product liability in enhancing product safety.

A frequent speaker at legal seminars in the region, he is active in legislative advocacy crucial to the bar and in the active representation of plaintiffs injured by defective products or negligence. As an author, he has written and published essays, scientific articles, short fiction, book reviews, letters and interviews in regional and national publications, including The Virginia Quarterly Review, Popular Science, The Missouri Review and The Delta Review.

He is a frequent contributor by letter to the Jonesboro Sun, Memphis Flyer, The Commercial Appeal and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, all regional papers, and teaches a literacy class at the Memphis Literacy Council. He will be among the international faculty of the Center for International Legal Studies, Salzburg, Austria, at its Spring, 2005 Conference in Whistler, Vancouver on International Law. There, he will speak on the subject of US-EU Product Liability Rules, a topic of comparative law among trading partners on both sides of the Atlantic.

If you have a legal question or matter that needs immediate assistance, please contact this office. There is no charge for a consultation to determine if there is a need for legal services or a mutual interest in further representation in a particular matter.