Beal, Sutherland, Berlin & Brown, LLC

Focus and practice areas

Two connected fields define this Atlanta firm's work: employment litigation and business litigation. Known also as BSBB Lawyers, Beal, Sutherland, Berlin & Brown represents employees and professionals on one side and people caught in commercial conflicts on the other. Those two streams run through everything the firm publishes about itself.

The employment work sits with the worker's side of a dispute. On the business side, the firm handles owners, executives, and companies in conflict over money and contracts. Holding both under one roof gives the firm a wide view of how workplace and commercial claims can overlap. A wrongful termination fight and an executive compensation claim, for instance, sometimes grow from the same set of facts.

In my opinion, that combination suits a firm comfortable moving between an employee's claim and a company owner's fight. The firm sorts its work into plain categories, so a prospective client can see where a matter would land. That clarity helps someone weigh whether the firm handles the kind of problem they bring.

The employment side in detail

On the employment side, the firm takes cases involving discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, and whistleblower claims. It also handles FMLA leave issues, overtime and wage and hour disputes, wrongful termination, and severance negotiations. Each area names a specific kind of workplace harm that can send an employee looking for a lawyer.

Each of these follows its own path. Discrimination and retaliation claims often start with a charge to a government agency before a court ever hears them. Wage and hour matters turn on pay records and job duties, since the question is usually how many hours went unpaid and at what rate. Whistleblower claims protect a worker who reports conduct they believe breaks the law.

Severance negotiations sit a step apart from the courtroom. Here the work is a written agreement: what an employee gives up, what the employer pays, and how the terms bind both sides afterward. A lawyer on this kind of matter reads the draft, spots the clauses that carry the most risk, and negotiates the language. Much of this work settles in writing before any judge is involved.

The business litigation side

The business litigation work covers breach of contract, fraud, professional malpractice, insurance coverage, and executive compensation and contracts. The firm also handles disputes among business owners, such as partnership breakups and minority shareholder claims, along with complex litigation and appellate matters. That gives the firm a mix of money disputes and questions of who owes what to whom.

Breach of contract cases ask a court to read an agreement and decide whether one side kept its word. Fraud claims go further, since a party must show intent and reliance beyond a simple broken promise. Professional malpractice matters measure a service provider's work against the standard others in the field would meet. A missed deadline or a flawed piece of advice can each support such a claim.

Owner disputes can run deep. A partnership breakup often requires an accounting of the business and a close read of the founding agreement. Minority shareholder claims raise the question of how a small owner is treated when larger owners control the decisions. Insurance coverage fights, by contrast, turn on the wording of a policy and whether a claim falls inside it.

How the team is built

Seven attorneys appear under the firm's Our Talent page: Drew Beal, Brian J. Sutherland, Rachel Berlin, Milinda Brown, Ashley Wilson Clark, Michael Glosup, and Melissa Eagling. The four names in the firm's title all sit on that list, which tells you who anchors the firm.

Rachel Berlin, who also appears as Rachel Berlin Benjamin, is a partner who represents employees in discrimination, retaliation, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, and wage disputes. She earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from the Pace University Elisabeth Haub School of Law and holds a bachelor's degree from Sarah Lawrence College. Ashley Wilson Clark practices in employment litigation and labor matters.

As a reviewer, I read a roster of this size at a litigation firm as a sign the firm can put more than one lawyer on a case when a matter grows. That depth tends to matter most in trials and appeals, where the workload climbs and a second set of hands helps. The named partners cover both the employment and business sides of the docket.

What the record shows

Two matters carry weight in the firm's own account of its work. Brian J. Sutherland was lead counsel in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia. The U.S. Supreme Court held in that case that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The case began with a county employee and ended as a national precedent.

That ruling reached the highest court in the country and changed how Title VII is read across the United States. It now shapes how employers and courts treat a whole category of discrimination claims. Sutherland has also commented publicly on First Amendment limits and workplace speech, which fits a lawyer working where employment law meets constitutional questions.

The second matter comes from the business side. Drew Beal and Milinda Brown secured an 11.4 million dollar jury verdict in a Fulton County Superior Court case. The dispute grew out of a partnership breakup and involved fraud and a deliberate breach of a settlement agreement. A verdict at that level tells a client the firm carries cases through to a jury when talks break down.

Where the firm works

The office is based in Atlanta, and the firm handles cases throughout Georgia. That reach includes Atlanta and the metro counties of Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Clayton, Douglas, and Henry. It also takes matters in Macon, Savannah, and South Georgia.

The attorneys hold licenses in Georgia, New York, and Washington. For a client whose job or contract crosses state lines, that range of admissions can keep a single matter in one firm's hands. The Atlanta base keeps the firm close to the courts where much Georgia litigation is heard.

Statewide coverage from a single Atlanta office is common for litigation firms in Georgia, since much of the state's civil work reaches courts in and around the capital. Cases in Macon, Savannah, and South Georgia can still be handled from a central base, with travel as the matter requires. The firm's stated reach across those regions signals it takes work outside the immediate metro area.