Page Pate (May 3, 1967 – September 11, 2022) was an American attorney and legal commentator at the

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

-based law firm Pate, Johnson & Church. He had been a practicing trial lawyer for over 25 years when he died in September 2022, and he also had extensive experience in criminal defense. He was a founding member of the

Georgia Innocence Project The Georgia Innocence Project is a non-profit corporation based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Its mission "is to free the wrongly prosecuted through DNA testing, to advance practices that minimize the chances that others suffer the same fate, ...

and frequently provided legal commentary to

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

, ''

the New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', and other major media outlets.

Biography

A native of

Dublin, Georgia Dublin is a city in Laurens County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,074. It is the county seat of Laurens County. History The original settlement was named after Dublin, Ireland. Dublin, accordi ...

, Pate received his undergraduate degree from

Georgia State University Georgia State University (Georgia State, State, or GSU) is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1913, it is one of the University System of Georgia's four research universities. It is also the largest institution of hig ...

, from which he graduated with honors, and his Juris Doctor degree from the

University of Georgia Law School The University of Georgia School of Law (Georgia Law) is the law school of the University of Georgia, a public research university in Athens, Georgia. It was founded in 1859, making it among the oldest American university law schools in continuou ...

in 1994. He was named one of the best trial lawyers in the United States by the National Trial Lawyers Association and one of "The Best Lawyers in America" by '' U.S. News & World Report''. He was also named on the list of Super Lawyers for twelve consecutive years. On September 11, 2022, while swimming with his son at Gould's Inlet off the coast of St. Simons Island, Georgia, Pate was caught in a

rip current A rip current, often simply called a rip (or misleadingly a ''rip tide''), is a specific kind of water current that can occur near beaches with breaking waves. A rip is a strong, localized, and narrow current of water which moves directly away ...

. While his son was able to swim to shore safely, Pate was not, and a water rescue team took Pate to the Southeast Georgia Health System hospital in Brunswick, where he was pronounced dead from

drowning Drowning is a type of suffocation induced by the submersion of the mouth and nose in a liquid. Most instances of fatal drowning occur alone or in situations where others present are either unaware of the victim's situation or unable to offer as ...

that afternoon at the age of 55.

References

1967 births 2022 deaths Georgia (U.S. state) lawyers People from Dublin, Georgia Georgia State University alumni University of Georgia School of Law alumni Deaths by drowning in the United States {{US-law-bio-stub