Gia Colunga is a Partner at Smith Gambrell Russell, a leading full-service business law firm. At SGR, Gia represents clients in all phases of complex commercial litigation in a wide range of contract, business tort, and employment cases across the country. But Gia’s “sweet spot,” so to speak, is managing sensitive litigation, which may have a difficult subject matter, be worth millions of dollars, or have hit the news. In those types of cases, her skills truly shine through. In such a case, a third-party provided the following feedback to Chambers about her work: “I cannot speak highly enough of her. … She was the one person who developed an encyclopedic understanding of the facts, witnesses and issues that were critical to the defense. She coordinated an immense amount of diverse effort that ultimately led to the resolution of the case. Her greatest strengths are her organizational ability, leadership qualities and coolness under fire. She has no weakness, but for a comparatively young litigator she has accomplished major league results. I anticipate her value to clients will only increase in the coming years. I have not encountered an attorney with the multi-faceted skill set possessed by Gia Colunga.” Likewise, a client told Chambers: “She represents us vigorously, adeptly and competently. When you have a tricky attorney on the other side, she is the right match. She knows when to be aggressive and when to dial it back. She knows how to handle high-stakes.”

Gia received similar feedback from nominators when she received the “40 Under Forty” award in 2017 from the Daily Law Bulletin and Chicago Lawyer. More recently, she was selected by Crain’s Chicago Business as one of the Notable Women in Law and has been named as a Illinois Super Lawyer for Business Litigation. For many prior years, she had been named as a Rising Star and Emerging Lawyer by Illinois Super Lawyers and Leading Lawyers. Gia received her J.D. with honors from Loyola University Chicago School of Law and received her B.A. in political science with honors from Tulane University.