Bio

Edward Hardin is a Partner in the Corporate Practice of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP. Mr. Hardin is currently the Chairman of the Fulton County Board of Health, Co-Chair of the Regional Commission on Homelessness, President of the Georgia Legal Services Foundation, Chairman Emeritus (and founder) of Gateway, LLC, a homeless services center, a member of the Boards of Grady Memorial Hospital Corporation and Partners for Home, Inc., Vice Chairman of the Board of Georgia Works! Inc., a residential workforce program for the chronically homeless and a non-profit affordable housing provider, and Founder of the National Committee for CARE USA. He is the recipient of numerous community service awards including the 2023 Hope Builder Award given by St. Vincent de Paul Georgia, the 2022 Buckhead Rotary Club’s Annual Rev. Robert Ross Johnson Humanitarian Award, the 2019 Mercy Moves through Me Award, the 2018 Ben F. Johnson, Jr. Public Service Award, 2018 Heroes, Saints and Legends Award, 2018 VEO Hero Impact Award from the Veterans Empowerment Organization and the Atlanta Business Journal named him one of Atlanta’s Most Admired CEOs for 2017. He received the 2016 Leadership Character Award from the Turknett Leadership Group and the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. Other awards include the Justice Robert Benham Lifetime Achievement Award for Community Service from the State Bar of Georgia and the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, and the Emory Public Interest Committee (EPIC) Inspiration Award for Lifetime Commitment to Public Service; the Elbert P. Tuttle Jurisprudence Award from the Anti-Defamation League, the Centurion Award from Travelers Aid of Metropolitan Atlanta, the Alexis de Tocqueville Award by the United Way’s de Tocqueville Society, and Visionary Award by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institution. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former Chair of the Board of Directors of the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, a former Chairman of the Board of the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, and a former Chairman of the Board of Paideia School, Inc. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former Chair of the Board of Directors of the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, a former Chairman of the Board of the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, a former Chairman of the Board of Paideia School, Inc., and a former Chairman of the Board of Invesco Mortgage Capital Inc., a real estate investment trust (REIT). For the past 20 years, Mr. Hardin’s peers have consistently selected him as one of the best corporate attorneys in the United States when surveyed biannually by The Best Lawyers in America®. Additionally, Best Lawyers® named him the Atlanta “Lawyer of the Year” in Corporate Law in 2011. Mr. Hardin has been listed Senior Statesman for Corporate/M&A law by Chambers USA. Super Lawyers has named him one of the top 10 Georgia Lawyers three times based upon peer surveys, and he was listed as a Georgia Super Lawyer from the advent of the survey through 2018. Georgia Trend magazine has also named him to their list of Legal Elite.