Practice Areas

TRANSPORTATION
Our aviation expertise has expanded into a diverse TRANSPORTATION practice. The trucking industry seeks our legal expertise and advice on all aspects of bodily injury and property damage litigation, as well as matters related to cargo, insurance, government regulation and product design. Another aspect of our transportation practice is oriented to the Maritime industry, where our attorneys handle Admiralty cases involving bodily injury, such as actions brought under the Jones Act, LHWCA and DOHSA. We also provide services to clients confronted with pleasure craft liability, hull damage, cargo losses, ship repairs and related insurance issues. Our transportation clients also retain us to handle problems related to various vehicles, including motorcycles and bicycles, such as product liability litigation and safety/risk management.(back to top)

LABOR and EMPLOYMENT
Our specialization in LABOR and EMPLOYMENT matters offers our clients certain unique services. While we handle a significant volume of labor and employment litigation on behalf of employers, we also provide legal counseling services for our clients. We encourage avoidance of costly lawsuits through informed management decisions that often address labor and employment issues before they become polarized. As counselors, we advise businesses ranging from sole proprietorships to large international corporations. We help our clients to implement effective management strategies designed to promote stability in the workplace while ensuring compliance with applicable regulations and statutes. We also counsel and represent our employer clients at the administrative level when they are confronted with organizing campaigns, unfair labor practice charges, collective bargaining disputes, job actions and strike related activities. When our employer clients become involved in litigation, we defend their interests in wrongful discharge cases, as well as statutory and common law actions. We have obtained numerous successful verdicts and judgments in state and federal courts in discrimination actions, claims arising from hiring and promotion practices and actions related to work force reductions. As part of our broader aviation practice, we provide labor and employment expertise in our representation of airlines and aviation businesses with legal problems involving both union and non-union personnel. Our expertise in labor relations activities governed by the Railway Labor Act enables us to represent our airline clients in judicial and administrative proceedings with attorneys who have been actual participants in the collective bargaining process and who are mindful of the unique concerns confronting the airline industry.
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INSURANCE
Our longstanding service to the INSURANCE industry continues to focus on the increasingly sophisticated needs and concerns of our insurance clients. Our philosophy is to work in tandem with our clients to achieve prompt and effective solutions to their insurance problems. We understand the need for early evaluations, risk benefit analysis and timely reporting. Our opinions concerning insurance coverage issues recommend practical solutions. Our coverage advice relates to first and third party claims against property, casualty, health and disability policies, as well as recommendations for policy drafting, claims handling procedures and corporate insurance guidelines. As a full service firm to the insurance market, we provide a broad spectrum of services, including defense of insureds in personal injury, property damage, product liability and other complex commercial disputes. We also represent insurers in declaratory relief actions, bad faith litigation and disputes among insurers. We defend insurance brokers and agents in professional liability litigation. We handle subrogation actions. As a separate aspect of our insurance practice, we provide representation to both FIDELITY and SURETY Underwriters. In the surety field, our clients seek our services for public works, performance and payment bonds, license bonds, and probate bonds, among others. Our clients also seek our representation in order to recover under general indemnity agreements and by subrogation. In fidelity matters, we advise our clients on coverage issues and litigation, including the defense of extra-contractual litigation.(back to top)

COMMERCIAL LITIGATION AND TRANSACTIONS
Our clients have grown to rely on our corporate and transactional experience for assistance in both managing and avoiding COMMERCIAL LITIGATION. Our attorneys have expertise in the fields of stock and asset sales, as well as secured and unsecured loan transactions. We also handle significant commercial litigation for individual and corporate clients to whom we provide counsel in other practice areas. We recognize that as far as COMMERCIAL TRANSACTIONS are concerned, we assist our clients to achieve their business objectives without becoming unduly burdened with regulatory schemes and litigation. We provide services in organizing and structuring businesses, as well as in negotiations involving purchase-sale agreements, leases and financing, and major contracts and acquisitions. We also counsel businesses on day-to-day personnel, contractual and business matters as part of the ongoing working relationship that we develop with each of our clients.
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COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
The legal services that we provide to our clients with COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE and CONSTRUCTION problems range from litigation to personal representation during transactions. In litigation, our clients include architects, engineers, real estate developers, contractors, lenders, sureties and insurers who are often involved in complex, multi-party lawsuits in the state and federal courts. Our attorneys incorporate backgrounds in architectural design and engineering which provides a measure of in house technical expertise that is invaluable to resolving construction and commercial real estate disputes, as well as construction litigation created by mass disasters. Our transactional services involve contract representation, real estate sales financing, leasing and landlord tenant issues. (back to top)

MEDICAL AND OTHER PRODUCT LIABILITY
Our MEDICAL and OTHER PRODUCT LIABILITY team continues to successfully represent clients who must defend the integrity of their products, whether it be a medical device, or a pharmaceutical, industrial, or consumer product. Our attorneys have detailed working knowledge of the products at issue. We also serve as advisors to our product liability clients on issues such as regulatory compliance, preventive practices and indemnity agreements. We recognize that each client has unique needs when dealing with an area of the law that is so potentially sensitive as a challenge to the design and manufacturing integrity of its product. We are accustomed to working closely with in-house counsel, top corporate management and company technical representatives. We also provide counsel to our product producing clients in connection with public agency inquiries and regulations. (back to top)