Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani today announced the forthcoming addition of another practice group from Sedgwick LLP in its California offices. The new attorneys (who will be joining Gordon & Rees as of the first of the new year) will practice primarily in the firm’s Maritime Group, and will reunite with other former Sedgwick lawyers who had previously moved to join Gordon & Rees’s Commercial Litigation Group.
The new additions include partners Andrew Port, who will co-chair the Maritime Practice Group from the firm’s San Francisco office, and James Marissen (another prominent maritime attorney who has practiced in the UK and Singapore as well as in California). Marissen will be stationed in the Orange County and Los Angeles offices. They will be accompanied by Sedgwick partners and well known maritime attorneys James Tamulski and Cheryl Morris, as well as senior counsels Christopher Farnsworth and James Kuhne. Sedgwick partner Eric Danoff will join Gordon & Rees on an of counsel basis. Former Sedgwick partner Kendra Canape and associate Rachel Weitzman joined Gordon & Rees’s Southern California offices in November with Canape serving as co-chair of the firm’s Securities Litigation Practice Group.
The attorneys joining Gordon & Rees in January will bring a diverse and impressive range of experience in maritime law ranging from the defense of property damage/personal injury/wrongful death claims to emergency response and casualty matters involving collisions, pollution and groundings. The group has represented numerous ship owners, charterers and their underwriters in a variety of litigated matters involving occupational disease, including asbestos, benzene, hearing loss and other claims. They have also handled charter party disputes, vessel finance, cargo claims, freight recovery actions, sexual assault matters, Longshore and Harbor Worker’s Compensation Act issues, stowaways, employment actions, defense of passenger claims, marine and air pollution, customs issues, drafting and litigation regarding bills of lading and charter parties, and a variety of transactional work. In addition to ship owners, the group’s clients include product manufacturers, governmental entities, terminal owners and ferry boat operators, international and domestic marine insurers and their insureds, and numerous others with shipping-related interests.
“The firm could not be more pleased to welcome our new colleagues from Sedgwick,” stated Gordon & Rees Firmwide Managing Partner Dion N. Cominos. “They are practitioners of the first rank and, of equal importance, are high quality individuals whom we have known and respected for many decades. We very much look forward to their joining our team as their addition will help create a preeminent maritime practice on the West Coast.”
“While we are committed to finishing the year at Sedgwick and assisting however we can with an orderly wind down, we are very excited to join Gordon & Rees on January 1,” said Andrew Port. “We have worked with many Gordon & Rees attorneys and clients over the years and know the firm well. Gordon & Rees’s geographic reach, the breadth of its practice areas, its clientele and its very experienced maritime group in San Diego make this an excellent fit and a very unique mutual opportunity.”
Gordon & Rees is a national litigation and business transactions firm with more than 800 lawyers in 47 offices across the United States. Our lawyers provide full service representation to public and private companies ranging from the Fortune 500 to start-ups. Founded in 1974, Gordon & Rees is recognized among the fastest growing and largest law firms in the country and continues to climb the ranks of both the Am Law 200 and The National Law Journal. Additionally, in 2017 Law360 ranked the firm among the top 50 largest U.S. firms and The American Lawyer ranked the firm among the top 35 on its Diversity Scorecard.
