Gwen Hutcheson Griggs was born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in Augusta, Georgia. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from the University of North Florida and her Juris Doctorate degree, with honors, from the University of Florida. Ms. Griggs was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1994 and is rated “AV” by Martindale-Hubbell; her practice focuses on corporate and business law, transactional law, including merger, acquisition and divestitures, contracts and intellectual property law (including trademark, copyright law, trade secret law, licensing and franchising).

Following law school, Ms. Griggs joined Holland & Knight, LLP in the commercial litigation department. After Holland & Knight, she spent four years in the commercial litigation and intellectual property departments of McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe, LLP. While there, she was asked to serve as the Chief Legal Officer, Senior Vice President and Corporate Secretary of one of her clients, Alfa SmartParks, Inc., a theme park company, while it grew to eleven locations in the United States, Mexico and South America. Her duties as Chief Legal Officer included handling legal issues related to all aspects of business operations, advising officers and directors on corporate governance issues for the parent and its twenty subsidiaries and managing the legal department budget and relationships with outside counsel. When Alfa SmartParks was sold in 2002, Ms. Griggs established her own law firm focusing on corporate and business law, transactional law, including merger, acquisition and divestitures, contracts and intellectual property law (including trademark, copyright law, trade secret law, licensing and franchising). In 2004, she merged the practice with the Firm.

Recently, Ms. Griggs was the Founding Chair and is the Immediate Past Chair of the Jacksonville Women’s Business Center, Founding Co-Chair of the Tier Two Development Committee of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce (with a focus on later stage entrepreneurial development), Vice-Chair of the Selection Committee for Leadership Jacksonville, Chair of the Intellectual Property Section of the Jacksonville Bar Association, Board member of Jacksonville Women’s Network. She serves on Advisory Panels and as a Board Member of closely held companies in North Florida. She is a Florida Supreme Court certified County Court Mediator, since 1995. She has served as the Treasurer of a successful City Council Campaign. Ms. Griggs was selected by the Small Business Administration as Women Advocate of the Year in 2005, selected by The Jacksonville Business Journal as a Woman of Influence in 2006, and by Florida Trend as Legal Elite, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. She has presented CLE courses and lectured for the Florida Bar, the Jacksonville Bar and other organizations.

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