Julia Smeds Roth

Julia Smeds Roth is an Eyster Key partner with over 30 years of litigation experience. Ms. Roth’s experience is focused primarily in the area of family law, wills and estate planning, and litigation. She has also had substantial experience in other complex litigation, including class actions. She was the court appointed facilitator in In re Managed Care, MDL1334, Southern District of Florida. She is a registered divorce mediator.

Ms. Roth has been involved throughout her career in professional services and activities. She was Chair of the Client Security Task Force of the Alabama State Bar to evaluate the fund and to make recommendations regarding its funding. She also served as the President of the University of Alabama Law School Foundation. The Foundation assists the University of Alabama Law School with its fundraising and support of the law school. She serves on the United Way Board and is Chair of the Princess Theatre Center for the Performing Arts Board of Directors. She has served on the vestry at St. John’s Episcopal Church. She is past President of the Morgan County Bar Association.

In the past, from 1986 to 1992, Ms. Roth served as special counsel to the Alabama House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee. She also served as a Law Clerk to The Honorable Sam C. Pointer, Jr., Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. She is a life-long Alabama resident with three adult children, three adult stepchildren, and five grandchildren. . She is married to Nicholas B. Roth, also a partner in the Eyster Key law firm.

Eyster Key

In or about 1884, John C. Eyster embarked on the private practice of law in Decatur, Alabama. From those roots, the Eyster firm began and was a family firm until approximately 1964 when John S. Key joined the firm. From its beginning to the present, the firm has engaged in the general practice of civil law, with a later emphasis on insurance defense litigation and taxation. The firm has gradually grown to be one of the largest and most diversified firms in North Alabama, continuing to provide quality legal services for a cross-section of the entire community in Morgan and surrounding counties in the Tennessee Valley region and throughout the state of Alabama.

The firm engages in general civil litigation in all courts, including personal injury, product liability, professional liability, class actions, insurance, corporate, probate, domestic, municipal, mediation, and workers’ compensation. The litigators in the firm are members of the Defense Research Institute, the Alabama Defense Lawyers Association, and the Alabama Trial Lawyers Association. Five members of the firm are certified mediators and listed by the Alabama Center for Dispute Resolution on the Alabama Arbitrator Roster. J. Glynn Tubb is the Decatur area representative of the Association of Defense Trial Attorneys and former Director of the Alabama Defense Lawyers Association. William Middleton is Morgan County’s only Workers’ Compensation Appellate Mediator, and Nick Roth is one of Alabama’s Super Lawyers and was peer-selected as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Eyster Key has provided sophisticated advice and aggressive representation to meet the needs of public companies, small private businesses, government entities, and individuals. From complex nationwide class action litigation to divorce disputes, from business start-ups to estate planning and will preparation, from products liability and injury lawsuits to insurance and workers’ compensation cases, Eyster Key attorneys have distinguished themselves by their expertise, responsive service, and cost effective solutions for their clients. Large enough to have the resources the firm’s clients need, Eyster Key remains small enough to provide the personalized service and responsiveness the firm’s clients want and deserve.