Ms. Culler’s practice is focused in water, land use, and property rights law, encompassing everything from storm water to safe dams issues and from residential construction defects to National Environmental Policy Act compliance and litigation.
A 2001 cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law, and a 1998 recipient of a Master of Studies in Environmental Law from Vermont Law School, Ms. Culler came to Stack & Associates in 2007 with a track record of environmental advocacy. Ms. Culler was honored with the Shelley Know Award for Dedication to Public Interest Law while a student at UGA, and a fellowship from Equal Justice Works (then “NAPIL”) right out of law school, and went to work immediately in the nonprofit sector to provide monitoring and education related to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s compliance with the Clean Water Act’s “Total Maximum Daily Load” program. This work at Georgia Legal Watch in Athens, Georgia, grew out of the important Georgia Supreme Court decision in Sierra Club v. Hankinson, and allowed Ms. Culler to interact with EPD, Georgia municipalities, and local non-governmental organizations who were all working together, under the United States District Court’s supervision, to ensure that polluted water bodies were properly identified, and that scientifically-based limits were set for any further introduction of pollutants into those already impaired streams, rivers, and lakes.
Ms. Culler has enjoyed both the cooperative, mediation-based approach and the aggressive litigation sides of her law practice. Subsequent to her nonprofit fellowship, Ms. Culler clerked for The Honorable Horace J. Johnson, Jr., in the Superior Courts for the Alcovy Circuit, and went on to serve as litigation associate for the Athens law firm of Lancaster & McKillip. There, Ms. Culler worked cases with Representative Doug McKillip and handled a wide variety of issues for clients, including litigation in environmental, construction defects, personal injury, and contracts disputes, and transactional work in real estate closings, corporate creation and management, trusts and estates, business contracts and negotiations, entertainment contracts and negotiations, and more. Also during her time in Athens, Ms. Culler served as President of the Upper Oconee Watershed Network, and received training in biological and chemical stream monitoring and erosion and sedimentation control through the Georgia EPD.
Ms. Culler is admitted to practice in Georgia and Tennessee. She originally hails from Lexington, South Carolina, and graduated cum laude from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Ms. Culler enjoys living in Atlanta and volunteering with the Whitefoord Child Development Center and providing pro bono services for clients referred through Georgia Lawyers for the Arts. She is married to Billy Rhoton, who is a woodworker specializing in acoustic guitars and children’s “rocking dinosaurs.” They have one son, Charles Atticus (“Charlie”), and a small pack of dogs.
