Rebecca Godbey Cummings is of counsel at the law firm of Cohen Pollock Merlin & Small, P.C. where she concentrates her legal work in wills, trusts and estates. Previously a partner at the firm, she is now Associate Professor at John Marshall Law School where she teaches wills, trusts, and estates, estate planning, and transactional legal writing. In 2011, Rebecca was named as one of the top 100 lawyers in the state of Georgia by Super Lawyers (published in Atlanta Magazine). Every year since 2005 she has been named one of "Georgia's Most Effective Lawyers" by Georgia Trend Magazine, and since 2007 she has been voted a "Super Lawyer" and one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in Georgia, both based on surveys of her peers. In 2005 she was awarded the "Woman of Distinction" prize from the State Bar of Georgia Younger Lawyers Division Women in the Profession Committee and in 2004 the Georgia Association for Women Lawyers (GAWL) presented Rebecca with the organization's first "Visionary Award". In 2008 she was featured as one of "12 to Watch" in the Fulton County Daily Report. Rebecca received the Kathleen Kessler Award, GAWL's highest honor, in 2010.
Rebecca is frequently invited to speak on estate planning and law practice management and has given hundreds of presentations on these topics at the invitation of the Fiduciary Law Section of the State Bar of Georgia, the Atlanta Bar Association's Estate Planning & Probate Section, the Georgia Society of CPAs, financial planning firms and professional groups, private law firms and bar associations, as well as at such organizations as Coca Cola, the Centers for Disease Control, Cox Enterprises and the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Emory Center for Lifelong Learning and the Center for Women at Emory. Rebecca also serves as a facilitator of strategic planning retreats and as a business development coach for other lawyers.
Rebecca is a past member of Emory University's Board of Visitors and the Board of the Estate Planning & Probate Section of the Atlanta Bar Association. She is also past president of both Georgia Women For a Change and GAWL, and she currently serves on GAWL's Advisory Board.
Rebecca grew up in Alexandria, Virginia and received her B.A. degree in 1993 from Emory University. A campus leader and sorority president at Emory, Rebecca was invited to membership in Pi Sigma Alpha academic honor society. At William and Mary Law School she was selected for membership on Moot Court; she received her J.D. in 1996. In early 1999, she began her own law practice, becoming a partner in the Atlanta firm of Tesser & Godbey LLC and later at Bird & Godbey LLP.
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