Mike Rafi’s videos have been watched more than a billion times. He is one of the most recognized lawyers in the world — and there is a good chance he was in court yesterday.
He is a plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer and the founder of Rafi Law Firm. He takes depositions, writes briefs, tries cases, and represents people and families in serious injury and wrongful death cases across the country. The videos are real because the work is real. Since founding the firm, Mike and his team have recovered more than $200 million for their clients — not by taking every case they can get, but by doing serious work on every case they take. Mike has no interest in being the biggest personal injury firm in the world — he would never hire a firm like that if he were injured.
The content came from the work, not the other way around. The videos were never meant to make Mike a social media lawyer — someone who is famous for talking about the law but not actually practicing it. They were meant to do what he already did every day with his own clients, just for a much larger audience. His approach is simple: give people stories they want to watch, and make sure they walk away knowing something that could actually help them. Interesting cases, current events, things that make people laugh — but always balanced with something real and useful. People watch because they can tell the difference between someone who is in the courtroom every day and someone who is just talking about it.
That instinct — to make the law more accessible to more people — is the same reason he started the firm. He believes people deserve better access to the law, whether that means watching a video or hiring a lawyer. That belief was shaped early. Mike began his legal career at Troutman Sanders — one of the country’s largest law firms — defending corporations in high-stakes products liability cases. While there, he was selected as the firm’s Legal Aid Fellow, representing low-income individuals facing illegal evictions and unsafe living conditions. That experience clarified something for him: good legal representation shouldn’t depend on how much money you have. It’s why he left defense work, started his own firm, and built it entirely around contingency fees. Rafi Law Firm does not get paid unless its clients win. That is not a marketing line. It is a commitment that has shaped every decision the firm has made since it opened in 2015.
Mike is as involved in the legal community as he is in his own cases. He speaks at national conferences, contributes to legal publications, and mentors law students. He has served as President of the DeKalb County, Georgia Bar Association, sat on the board of the Atlanta Bar Association’s Small Firm Section, and testified before the Georgia House of Representatives on tort reform.
He graduated from Furman University and the University of Georgia School of Law, where he competed on the national mock trial and moot court teams, was named Outstanding Mock Trial Advocate of his class, and was inducted into the National Order of the Barristers and the Lumpkin Inn of Court. He graduated as the most decorated advocate in the school’s history.
Outside the courtroom, Mike lives in Atlanta with his wife Ashley, their four kids, and their two dogs. Ashley is a teacher, and together they host the Married to the Law podcast — a behind the scenes look at what it actually means to practice law, be married to a lawyer, and navigate all of it as a family. They talk about real issues and what matters to them, which is pretty much how they do everything else too. Their kids range from toddlers to middle school, and all four have developed a habit of making unscheduled appearances in his videos — which his audience has decided they are very much here for.
He has also established the Annette McKean Scholarship Fund, an endowed scholarship at UGA Law named after his grandmother. Annette McKean was a nurse who co-founded a home healthcare business that grew from two people to several hundred employees in just a few years. She was Mike’s closest role model — someone who built something from nothing and showed him what that looked like up close. The scholarship honors her memory by supporting first-generation law students who want to open their own firms.
Training
Like the best professional athletes, the best lawyers have the best training. Mike first worked at Troutman Sanders LLP; an international law firm with more than 600 lawyers. While there, Mike defended large companies in personal injury and commercial litigation cases, including defending Georgia’s largest electric utility company in cases involving commercial vehicles. The firm selected Mike as its “Legal Aid Fellow,” because he fought for low-income individuals whose landlords illegally evicted them or forced them to live in poor conditions. Mike still fights for crime victims in Atlanta and throughout Georgia who are injured because of negligence by landlords and property owners. Mike graduated with honors from the University of Georgia School of Law. While in law school, Mike was on both the National Moot Court and National Mock Trial Teams. He won the Ralph J. Beaird Closing Argument Competition and the Talmadge Moot Court Competition. The law school named Mike the “Outstanding Mock Trial Advocate” of his class and inducted him into the exclusive Lumpkin Inn of Court and National Order of the Barristers. Mike gives back each year by helping coach UGA law students in mock trial and moot court.
Mike graduated with honors from Furman University and currently serves as an Admissions Ambassador for the University. While at Furman, Mike served as captain of the Mock Trial Team and worked for U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham. Mike then worked for a number of news organizations, including Fox News Channel in New York City and Cox Broadcasting’s Washington, DC news bureau. Each day he helped tell audiences about challenges faced by individuals and their communities. Now, instead of telling stories on television to thousands of viewers at home, Mike advocates for his clients to juries, and in the process has helped his clients recover millions of dollars.
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Rafi Law Firm
1776 Peachtree St NW UNIT 423, Atlanta, GA 30309
(404) 800-9933
