Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Page 3
Prominent Litigator Brian J. Panish, Two Others Leave Greene Broilett To Start New Firm
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Brian J. Panish has left Greene, Broillet, Panish & Wheeler to establish his own West Los Angeles firm.
Yesterday was the first day of business at Panish, Shea & Boyle LLP, which will also handle personal injury and other complex litigation on behalf of plaintiffs.
The new firm will be Panish, Shea & Boyle LLP. Joining Panish will be Adam K. Shea and Kevin R. Boyle.
Panish, who was a partner with Greene Broillet for 18 years, won several multi-million dollar verdicts. He was the lead trial attorney in a case that resulted in a $4.9 billion verdict against General Motors Corporation; Panishís clients suffered major burns as a result of what jurors found to be a defective fuel system.
Panish began his legal career with Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack in 1984 and moved to Greene Broilett in 1987.
Panish has been honored by numerous trial lawyer organizations, including the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles as Trial Lawyer of the Year. He has been recognized as a leading plaintiffsí lawyer by legal publications, and is a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, which is an invitation-only group limited to 100 civil trial lawyers nationally.
He has been involved in a number of high profile mass tort actions, serving as a member of the Plaintiffs Steering Committee in the L-Tryptophan Drug Litigation and on the State Fen-Phen Diet Drug Litigation Plaintiff Executive Committee.
He has also been heavily involved in train and aircraft accident cases, including the crashes of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Pt. Mugu, and Singapore Airlines Flight 006, which crashed in October 2000 at an airport in Taiwan.
His clients have also included two victims that died in the plane crash that killed singer Aaliyah, and the families of two Marines who were killed when their Cobra Attack Helicopter crashed during training exercises.
The new firm ìwill be making a difference for our clients by fighting corporate greed and companies that place their profits over the safety of consumers,î Panish said in a statement.
Shea was also a Greene Broillet partner, and had been with that firm for 14 years. Boyle, a former law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, joined Greene Broilett four years ago after having practiced and also worked at Kirkland & Ellisí Washington D.C. office.
Copyright 2005, Metropolitan News Company