ATLANTA (April 17) – Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton announced today that partner Rupert Barkoff was named a Franchise Times 2012 Legal Eagle, representing the top 135 franchise attorneys in the US and Canada. Mr. Barkoff has been listed in this prestigious ranking every year since 2004, the first year Franchise Times published Legal Eagles.

This year a record number of nominations were submitted to Franchise Times to determine the select group of Legal Eagles.  Franchise Times describes Legal Eagles as attorneys “finding creative solutions, thinking out of the box, raising the bar…” These individuals “volunteer their talents” and “put in hundreds of hours… to present at annual legal gatherings.”  To make the list, attorneys were nominated by their peers and clients, plus met the criteria of the Franchise Times editorial board.

Mr. Barkoff has been practicing franchise, distribution and corporate law for 38 years. His franchise practice emphasizes solutions to registration and structuring issues and developing individual and collective solutions to franchisor-franchisee relationship problems. Mr. Barkoff was recognized as one of the country’s leading franchise attorneys by The Best Lawyers in America^® in 2012 and the 11 years immediately preceding, as well as the 2011 Franchising Attorney of the Year in Atlanta.  In 2010, he received the prestigious Lew Rudnick Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Bar Association's Forum on Franchising.

Kilpatrick Townsend’s Franchise Team, chaired by Mr. Barkoff, together with only 10 other firms, was rated “Tier 1” nationally in franchising in the annual survey issued by U.S. News and World Report/Best Lawyers in America and was the only Tier 1 firm in franchising in the Atlanta market.  The 2011 edition of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business ranked the firm’s franchise practice in a tie for third place, with Mr. Barkoff being one of only seven attorneys ranked “Band 1” domestically. Chambers has referred to Mr. Barkoff as “one of the godfathers of franchise law.”

For more information about Mr. Barkoff, please visit: http://www.kilpatricktownsend.com/en/Who_We_Are/Professionals/B/BarkoffRupertM21.aspx

For more information about Kilpatrick Townsend, please visit: www.kilpatricktownsend.com.

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