You know you’re home when you can name every shortcut down Scenic Highway and you remember Braves games at old Fulton County Stadium like gospel. For Clayton Cain, home isn’t just a place, it’s a legacy. It’s red dirt under cleats, a family name folks still remember, and a promise to do good with what you’ve been given.
Cain was the featured guest on the Guide to Gwinnett Podcast recently, and let me tell you, if there’s ever been a more authentic blend of All-American grit and Gwinnett-grown compassion, I haven’t met him. Clayton Cain isn’t just an attorney—he’s one of us. His story is one of his firm’s long-time tag lines, “From Gwinnett, For Gwinnett.”
Cain’s story starts as Gwinnett was just coming of age. His parents met at Berkmar High in the 70s, and as he grew up his afternoons were spent at Bethesda Park, a bat in hand from the time he could walk. But Clayton wasn’t just another kid in the outfield, he was a natural athlete. Football was big. Basketball games were played. But baseball? Baseball was love.
“I always wanted to go outside, always wanted to play,” Cain told us, remembering his youth in the Brookwood district. He played under the same systems that made Brookwood a sports powerhouse. The structure, the discipline—he soaked it all in. That mindset followed him to the University of Georgia, where he signed early and showed up certain he’d found his destiny.
But life doesn’t always play out like a highlight reel.
“I didn’t take baseball as seriously as I should’ve,” Cain admitted. Athens offered freedom, and with it, distraction. “I showed up thinking I was the guy—and then realized everyone else was ‘the guy’ too.” It’s a moment every former athlete knows. The wake-up call. The one where the jersey doesn’t protect you from imposter syndrome.
So he pivoted. Cain left Georgia, landed at Valdosta State, and flourished. “That move changed everything,” he said. “It gave me purpose again.” He became an All-American and found something deeper than stats—he found calling.
That calling eventually led him into coaching, then sports agency, and finally, law school. “I didn’t even know what the LSAT was,” he laughed. But someone told him he’d need it to truly serve athletes well, and so he dove in. Not out of ambition, but out of service. Out of heart.
Today, Cain leads 3 Summits Law, where the firm’s three pillars—business & sports law, real estate, and personal injury—mirror his own life journey. “I know what it’s like to be an athlete. I know what it’s like to start a business. And I know what it’s like to fight for your family,” he said.
And fight he has. When his son Ridge was born with a brain injury, Cain stepped back from business and learned everything he could about trauma, healing, and care. “It changed me,” he said. “But it also gave me a new focus.” Now, he’s one of the region’s go-to attorneys on head injury litigation—because this work, like his whole life, is personal.
Cain’s sports law work isn’t about glitz and glam—it’s about making sure athletes are protected when the cameras are off. From NIL deals to bull riding contracts to helping professional volleyball players navigate endorsements, Cain brings lived experience to every case.
“People think sports law is just Jerry Maguire,” he joked. “But it’s so much more. It’s guiding people through transitions—off the field, into business, into life.”
So when you’re a young athlete trying to figure out your future, or a parent with questions, or a business looking to grow responsibly, it makes sense to call someone who gets it. Someone who’s lived it. Someone who knows what it’s like to feel invincible one minute and invisible the next.
That’s Clayton Cain.
Because in Gwinnett, we don’t just raise athletes. We raise leaders. And some of them—like Clayton—come home to lead others toward their own version of victory.
To hear more of Clayton’s story listen to this episode of the Guide to Gwinnett Podcast:
