David J. Marmins

David is a partner in the Litigation practice and leads the Real Estate Litigation team. David has concentrated his practice on complex civil litigation since becoming a lawyer in 1995.

As a nationally recognized leading real estate litigator, David represents some of the country’s largest companies in land disputes. David’s cases have garnered national and local media attention, and he is often sought after for his legal acumen and industry opinion by the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and CNBC. David’s authoritative literature on legal trends in the retail industry is frequently published by the American Bar Association, and he is an ongoing facilitator and teacher of continuing education seminars for the International Shopping Center Institute and other trade associations. David and his team frequently teach custom-designed lunch and learns to real estate development, construction, and other companies on the best ways to avoid, prepare for, negotiate, and win legal disputes.

David and his team have developed a concentration in litigation related to commercial real estate in the retail, office, industrial, and healthcare industries. This focus gives him a unique understanding of how to solve problems that arise among owners, developers, managers, landlords, tenants, builders, and contractors. Clients throughout the United States hire AGG’s Real Estate Litigation team to resolve construction and leasing contract disputes, environmental nuisance and toxic tort matters, construction payment and defect claims, easement and right-of-way disputes, and various other disagreements over land use and ownership. David often leverages his experience toward negotiating early and alternative resolutions to disputes.

David is at the forefront of one of the fastest emerging areas of land use and environmental law — litigation over the use and disposal of “PFAS,” man-made chemicals used to make carpet, food packaging, personal care products, firefighting foam, and for many other industrial applications. David currently serves as defense counsel to three carpet manufacturing industry clients in PFAS litigation in federal and state court.

David also has extensive experience handling banking and related lending matters. He has particular proficiency litigating fraudulent conveyance claims, having chased evasive debtors for banks when real estate development crashed in the late 2000s.

David’s practice is deeply rooted and personally inspired. Not long after leaving his first job as a civil litigator at the Georgia Attorney General’s office, David represented a family of nine brothers and sisters that had been fighting the State of Georgia for access to their family farm for 36 years. In that matter, David successfully won a jury verdict condemning an interest in land from the State for a private family’s use for the first time in history. Following that victory, David began focusing more on real estate litigation and has amassed a string of significant victories at trials, on appeals, and in arbitrations. In 2012, David moved his practice to AGG in large part due to the firm’s strong, national commercial real estate practice. The combination has proven successful as David has continued to win real estate disputes, only now throughout the country instead of just in Georgia.

David is a dedicated community servant, both through AGG and other avenues. David chairs the firm’s Community Engagement Committee, directing AGG’s participation in volunteer and charitable activities. David also serves on the firm’s Diversity Committee. Outside of AGG, David has served as a board member of the Georgia Interfaith Public Policy Council. David also served on The Temple’s Rothschild Social Justice Institute Council and chaired its Anti-Sex Trafficking group. David graduated from the Anti-Defamation League’s Glass Leadership Institute in 2010, has served on the ADL Southeastern Board of Directors, and currently sits on the ADL Civil Rights Committee.

As the beneficiary of valuable mentorship himself, David devotes significant time to helping young litigators learn from his experience. Many AGG attorneys have taken their first deposition, argued their first motion, and/or had their first jury trial on David’s cases. David started and runs AGG’s Trial Day litigation training exercise.

David is also a twice-published author. He is the editor of the legal treatise, Georgia Nuisance Law, and wrote the narrative nonfiction book, Appalachian State Silences the Big House: Behind the Greatest Upset in College Football History, published by McFarland & Co. in 2017.

David and his wife Amanda split their time between Toccoa and Atlanta, Georgia. They have a son, Alec, and daughter, Tatum.