Admiration for lawyers at one of Atlanta’s oldest personal injury firms, Finch McCranie, helped persuade Lee Gutschenritter to switch from the defense to the plaintiffs side last fall. Now the firm has made him a partner.

Gutschenritter, 34, said he knew he wanted to be a litigator when he started law school, but he wasn’t sure what type. He went to work for a big Atlanta defense firm, Carlock Copeland & Stair, after earning a law degree from Florida State University in 2008.