About Howard Gold
After 46 years of practicing law in Georgia, Howard Gold has retired from his family law practice in Atlanta and opened a consulting firm for psychotherapists, family law attorneys, and their clients.
Howard Gold was admitted to practice law in New York, Washington, D.C., and Georgia in the 1970s. He first started practicing law as a criminal public defender in Washington, D.C. Howard cut his teeth as a trial lawyer against Assistant United States Attorneys in the federal system. During this time, he tried over 100 jury trials.
Howard then moved to Atlanta in 1974 and worked in the private sector as a civil lawyer until 1980. Howard was intrigued by his clients who sometimes appeared more interested in using him as a therapist than as a lawyer, and he decided to earn a Masters in Social Work at the University of Georgia. His Masters thesis, titled “The Need for a Family Court in the State of Georgia,” was published in the Georgia Courts Journal in December, 1980.
After graduating with his M.S.W., Howard went to work at Families First, a United Way agency, where he practiced psychotherapy with individuals, couples, and families. At the same time, he was a lobbyist for the agency at the Georgia State Capitol, where he was involved in the drafting of the Child Abuse Reporting Act and the Domestic Violence Restraining Act.
After four years of practicing psychotherapy, Howard decided to go back to law and merged his therapy skills in a family law practice. He also taught in Georgia State University’s departments of Social Work and Criminal Justice in both graduate and undergraduate programs. Over the years, Howard has tried roughly 150 divorce jury trials, as Georgia is the last state in the Union to continue to offer jury trials in divorce cases.
Throughout the years, Howard has also developed a specialty of working with families with children who have autism or special medical needs, as well as families with addiction. Howard has tried many custody cases before a judge and has utilized the services of guardian ad litems, psychological evaluators, and addiction evaluators.
Over his career as a family lawyer, Howard has served thousands of clients in trials before judges, jury trials, and mediations. Howard has a track record of over 90% success in settling cases at mediation.
For over 35 years, Howard has provided telephone consultation to therapists and conducted workshops with psychotherapists on Law and Therapy, Legal Issues in Therapy Practice, and Ethical Considerations in Therapy Practice.