Prior to Ardis Law LLP, Mr. Duma founded and served as the Managing Partner of a law firm as well as practiced law at a renowned Atlanta-based law firms in its corporate department. He also previously served in-house as general counsel for Thoughtmill Corp. and XcelleNet Inc. and as corporate and intellectual property counsel for Premiere Global Services IPresident George W. Bush nominated Mr. Strickland to the eleven-member bipartisan Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in Washington, DC. After Senate confirmation, he was elected Chairman of the Board of LSC and served in that position from April 2003 until April 2010. Mr. Strickland continues to serve on two LSC board committees. LSC is the single largest funder of civil legal aid in the country. LSC promotes equal access to justice by funding high-quality civil legal assistance for low-income Americans. LSC currently funds 130 local legal aid programs in every congressional district and five U.S. territories. With more than 800 offices nationwide, these organizations serve thousands of families, veterans, seniors, and individuals in every congressional district.
By appointment of Governors Sonny Perdue and Nathan Deal, from 2003 to 2016 Mr. Strickland served on the Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC), which reviews candidates for judicial appointments throughout the State of Georgia.
As co-counsel with his late law partner, Anne Ware Lewis, in the landmark case of Larios v. Cox, 300 F. Supp 1320 (N.D. Ga. 2004), aff’d 542 U.S. 947 (2004), Frank represented 29 individual plaintiffs who challenged Georgia’s 2000 cycle congressional and legislative plans as violating the “one person, one vote” requirement under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. After trial, the three-judge federal district court ruled in favor of Frank’s clients and invited the General Assembly to draw new legislative maps that complied with the Constitution. After the General Assembly failed to do so, the district court oversaw a process of a Special Master drawing new politically neutral maps. The court-drawn maps were first utilized in the 2004 elections, which resulted in a gain of twenty Republican seats in the state House of Representatives and control of that chamber for the first time since 1870. In January 2005, the General Assembly elected its first Republican Speaker of the House since Reconstruction as a direct result of the Larios decision.
Mr. Strickland served as an officer in the United States Coast Guard and is a retired Commander, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve.