The ATA Litigation Center was incorporated in Virginia in May 1985.  As originally conceived, the Center was designed to pool individual carrier resources so as to allow the industry to pursue costly litigation whose financial burden would be too great for an individual trucking company to bear.  Its corporate mission was identified as the promotion and defense of motor carriers’ common interests through advocacy, legal counseling, training, and information. 

The Center’s activities are overseen by a 33-person Board of Directors and its day-to-day operations managed by an in-house professional staff.  The Center represents ATA or individual members in cases that have broad public policy implications for the trucking industry. The Center selects the cases in which it will participate based on objective selection criteria, including: chance of success; precedential value; benefit to the industry; and cost. 

The Center serves as its clients, ATA, ATA members, and affiliated entities such as the state trucking associations.  Over the last quarter century, the Center has represented trucking in virtually all types and levels of court (including nearly 20 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court) and backed members as an amicus in scores of cases that have industry-wide importance.