Elizabeth Costner Law Group
Not only will Elizabeth Costner make sure you have the best legal representation—she will also make sure your stomach is full. In addition to being one of Savannah’s most experienced and accomplished attorneys, Costner is also a wife and mother, after all.
Through her experience as a mediator —often working back-to-back sessions that stretched through lunch time—Costner noticed that negotiating is more contentious on an empty stomach. “When people are in mediation sessions, they must have clear, well-fueled minds,” Costner says. “If people are hungry they don’t represent themselves well. Frankly, people get hungry and cranky.” That’s why when you agree to mediation with Costner Law Group, Elizabeth and her team will prepare some of the finest Southern cooking so that both parties are put at ease and more likely to arrive at positive legal solutions. “When people share food together, tensions lessen and animosity fades,” says Costner. “And this is the best way to get that win-win outcome.”
When you factor in lunch, there are definitely no losers. Some of Costner’s specialties are shrimp creole, beef burgundy, and poppy seed chicken, and her administrative assistant does a mean fried chicken, but she goes out of her way to fill any special requests.
The lunches have become something of legend, to the point that attorneys occasionally confess that they could have settled over the phone but came to negotiate in person so they could grab a plate. There’s one other unique element in every one of Costner’s mediations—her purple ink pen. When she mediated her first case, she happened to be equipped with a purple pen, and the case settled. She brought a black pen to her second mediation and didn’t have as much luck. Likewise with blue ink. So now it’s well-known that Costner’s mediation notes will have a violet hue.
Taking an alternative approach is nothing new for Costner, whose journey to a career in law followed an unusual path. Growing up in Montezuma, Georgia, Costner went to the University of Georgia with the intention of becoming a pharmacist but changed her major to sports medicine after her sophomore year with plans to become a physical therapist.
MEDIATION MADE RIGHT
Elizabeth realized during her senior year that a career in that field wouldn’t be a good fit and, inspired by her attorney brother-in-law John Harper, decided to take the LSAT and attend Mercer Law School. The late Judge John V. Harper, a superior Court judge in Americus, was a mentor of Costner and off she went.
The Costner Law Group’s areas of expertise include worker’s compensation claims, serious injury or death, on-the-job injuries, and insurance litigation, and the firm’s specialization in fighting for victim’s rights ensures workers get a fair shake.
Costner has 25 years of experience doing exactly that. She has experience as both a defense attorney and a claimant’s attorney, as well as the well-earned respect of many of the other leading attorneys in her field, which makes her a valuable asset to clients—or both parties of a mediation.
Costner began mediating cases more than a decade ago and finds the practice is often beneficial both sides. Mediation gives a clearer voice to the injured worker, she says, especially in worker’s compensation cases, which are heard only by a judge—with no trial by jury. That means the worker has little say in the courtroom and one person—the judge—decides the outcome. But in mediation, both parties have a voice and they often come to an agreement that couldn’t be obtained in the courtroom.
When Costner isn’t leading a mediation or in the courtroom, she’s probably close to the water. She and her husband, Tim, and children Thomas, 17, and Catherine, 13, spend just about every weekend by the pool, on the boat, or in the water—they’re all certified scuba divers.
Their favorite spot to dive is in the Florida Keys, but contrary to popular belief, Costner says diving off the Georgia coast is better than most folks realize as long as you get far enough offshore. At certain times of year they also enjoy spearfishing—and their catch might just get fried up and served in the mediation room on Monday.
The Elizabeth Costner Law Group • 912.355.0515 • elizabethcostner.com / 8502 Hurst Ave, Savannah, Ga 31406
