Ryals Drayton Stone

Ryals D. Stone is an associate attorney in the Atlanta office of Boone & Stone who represents individual as well as corporate plaintiffs in the areas of catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, products liability, medical negligence, civil fraud/RICO, as well as commercial and consumer litigation.  During his career as a litigator, Mr. Stone has worked on many complex civil cases and has participated as an integral member of the Boone & Stone trial team during numerous multi-week jury trials which have resulted in verdicts, judgments, and settlements totaling over $100 million combined. 

Ryals is the oldest son of Boone & Stone senior partner William S. Stone.  Upon being admitted to the Georgia Bar in 2010, Ryals proudly became the 5th straight generation of Georgia attorneys in the Stone family, dating back 125 years to his great-great-grandfather in 1885.  Ryals grew up in his rural hometown of Blakely in Early County, Georgia.  He attended high school at Southwest Georgia Academy in nearby Damascus, where he graduated with With Honors in 2000.  Ryals attended college at the University of Georgia in Athens, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2005 while majoring in History.  During his college days developed a strong work ethic working multiple part-time jobs such as law library assistant for the UGA School of Law, campus tour guide for the UGA Visitors Center, legal assistant for a prominent Athens law firm, and camp counselor and Program Director for Camp Laney for Boys in Mentone, Alabama.  Ryals is also a proud member of the UGA chapter of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.

After college, Ryals attended Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, where he received his law degree in 2009. Following his second year of law school, Ryals participated in a Summer Study Abroad at the University of Cambridge in England, where he studied International Comparative Constitutional Law and Professional Responsibility. During his third year at Cumberland, Ryals held externships for both the in-house counsel's office at Southern Progress Corporation as well as the District Attorney's Office in nearby Bessemer, Alabama.

Upon passing the Georgia Bar Exam, Ryals was admitted to the Georgia Bar and officially sworn in to practice law in Georgia on November 8, 2010.  Mr. Stone is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Georgia, the U.S. District Court of the Middle District of Georgia, as well as the Georgia Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Georgia.  Ryals is also a proud member of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association (GTLA), the American Bar Association (AAJ), the American Association of Justice, and the Atlanta Bar Association.  He currently serves as the President of his local Pataula Bar Association, which includes Early, Clay, Miller, Quitman, Randolph, Seminole, and Terrell counties.  Ryals currently serves on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee for the State Bar of Georgia's Young Lawyers Division, serving as the Director of Sponsorship and Litigation Committee Co-Chair.   Ryals is also member of GTLA's Executive Committee; from 2013-2015, he has chaired GTLA's "Leadership Education & Advanced Direction" Program ("LEAD"), an annual leadership academy which he co-founded in 2013 for talented young Georgia trial lawyers.  Mr. Stone currently chairs GTLA's New Member Orientation Committee; he has also served on GTLA's Civil Justice PAC Board of Directors since 2014.

Ryals currently resides in Atlanta with his wife Lauren and their newborn son, Jack. Together they enjoy attending Georgia Bulldogs football games and tailgating, traveling, spending time with their family, friends, and their black lab "Bubba."