Firm Overview
Hipes & Belle Isle, LLC provides expert legal assistance, advice and representation to businesses of all sizes.
Our attorneys have the experience, knowledge and judgment to handle your legal matters and protect your company’s interests to the fullest extent of the law. We have highly skilled, ethical and successful negotiators, courtroom litigators, real-estate experts and business advisors who provide prompt, aggressive and reasonably priced legal services.
When a complex legal question demands knowledge and experience in several areas, Hipes & Belle Isle offers single-source convenience by providing legal services in:
Business Litigation
Commercial Real Estate Law
Corporate Transactions
Employment Law
Insurance Law
Wills, Trusts & Estates
At Hipes & Belle Isle, we are also proud of our success and standing within the legal, professional and civic communities. We look forward to even greater achievements as we meet and address the legal challenges of our rapidly evolving society, but most importantly we look forward to serving you with experience, expertise and integrity.
Practice Areas
Legal ServicesHipes & Belle Isle’s law practice encompasses the following areas:
Real-Estate Law
Hipes & Belle Isle is on the approved-attorney list of more than 30 commercial lenders and brokers. We are eligible to close commercial real estate and other secured transactions for most of the national, regional and community banks in the Metropolitan-Atlanta area.
We close conventional and Small Business Administration 7(a) and 504 loans and have more than a decade of experience in other areas of property law, including environmental law.
We work with developers, owners, property managers, tenants, financial institutions and investors in all types of transactions. Commercial real estate law includes acquisitions, construction-contract issues and litigation, contract negotiations, debt restructurings, foreclosures, landlord-tenant disputes, lease negotiations and contracts.
Construction Law
We represents owners, contractors and suppliers in all aspects of the construction process, including contract negotiation and formation, contract performance, mechanics’ and material-men’s liens, payment and performance bonds for public projects, and claims and dispute resolution.
Contract Law
We draft, negotiate and review commercial business contracts of every kind, including sales, marketing, consulting and business-development agreements, leases, franchise agreements and buy/sell agreements.
Corporate Law
The form of business chosen for a business entity potentially affects every aspect of its operations. Hipes & Belle Isle assists clients in the formation, startup or re-organization of their business and in business planning.
We will analyze your mission and your goals for growth, and help you decide if it’s best for you to operate as a limited liability company, partnership or corporation. We advise clients about director and officer liability, dissolution, reorganization, joint ventures, acquisitions, divestitures and business successions. In addition, we handle franchise purchase and sales.
Employment Law
Hipes & Belle Isle has the experience and resources to handle your employment and labor-law matters. Our employment and labor-law practice has provided counsel to individuals and businesses in areas such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VII and the Family Medical Leave Act. Our employment practice also includes: employee manual and personnel policy development; contract and tort matters; discrimination matters based on gender, age, disability, national origin, race or religion; hiring and firing; job interview practices; Older Workers Benefits Protection Act issues; privacy and employee monitoring issues; wage and hour disputes, and wrongful termination. Our attorneys have also handled litigation in state, federal and appellate courts and have represented employees and defended employers before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies.
Estate Law
At Hipes & Belle Isle, we handle a variety of probate and estate-planning matters, including planning for the distribution of an individual’s property upon death and using wills, taxes, insurance, property and trusts to the maximum benefit of the law while, at the same time, carrying out the client’s wishes.
We have decades of experience in estate planning that utilizes wills, spousal and children’s trusts, insurance trusts, special-needs trusts, revocable-living trusts, irrevocable trusts, advance-medical directives, powers of attorney (general, special and medical), as well as an array of sophisticated planning techniques that protect assets from unnecessary probate costs and taxation.
Insurance Law
A significant focus of the Hipes & Belle Isle practice is the representation of policyholders and insurance carriers in first-party insurance coverage and bad-faith matters. We provide clients with coverage interpretation and serve as litigation counsel on matters including, but not limited to, arson, fraud in the application and submission of the claim, bad faith refusal to pay, unfair claims practices, cancellation procedures, reservation of rights, waiver and estoppel, right to counsel and the insurer’s duty to defend. In addition to first-party insurance issues, we have extensive experience in defending liability claims, including the representation of insured’s through insurance carriers and self-insured’s.
John D. Hipes
JDH 1aJohn Hipes is from Muncie, Indiana. He received his B.A. cum laude from Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) in 1981 and his J.D. magna cum laude from Georgia State College of Law (Atlanta) in 1988, where he served as senior editor for the Georgia State University Law Review. He authored Abusive Litigation in Georgia, Georgia State Univ. L. Rev., Vol. 3, 1987.
John has practiced law for more than 28 years. He began his law practice in 1988 with Smith, Gambrell & Russell LLP and then with Morris, Manning & Martin (both in Atlanta) before forming Hipes & Norton, P.C. (Alpharetta) in 1996. In 2004, John helped to form Bach, Dewberry & Hipes, LLC (Alpharetta). In 2013, John founded Hipes & Belle Isle, LLC.
John practices commercial litigation, including insurance coverage and interpretation, construction, real estate, employment, partnership and shareholder disputes, and tort and injury law. He has successfully resolved and tried numerous business and contract lawsuits on behalf of policyholders, including issues involving bad faith, unfair claims practices, fraud, arson, theft, cancellation procedures, and coverage interpretation.
John is admitted to practice in all Georgia courts, including State and Superior, the Georgia Court of Appeals, and the Georgia Supreme Court. He is also admitted in the United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia and the United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.
John is a member of the State Bar of Georgia. He is also a Past-President of the North Fulton Bar Association where he served on the Board of Directors from 2006 to 2013. John is a Board Member and Treasurer of North Fulton Community Charities, Board and Executive Committee Member of the the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce, Board Member of the Alpharetta Public Safety Foundation, and previously served on the Board for the Ed Isakson Alpharetta YMCA. He is a member of the Leadership North Fulton Class of 2000, Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce, and Alpharetta Business Association.
John is also a long-time member of the Rotary Club of Alpharetta where he served as President in 2008-2009, as Board Member for many years, and currently serves as chairperson of the Alpharetta Memorial Day Tribute Committee. John is an Alpharetta Rotary Club Rotarian of the Year and Hall of Fame member, and a Rotary District 6900 Sheffield Award winner.
John is an active member of the Alpharetta First United Methodist Church where he serves on the Church Council and Missions Committee and previously on the Board of Trustees.
John has participated in many humanitarian and mission trips to Central and South America with Rotary and AFUMC. He and his wife, Karen, reside in Alpharetta.