PARTNER
Kevin K. Cholakian attended North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina his senior year of high school 1971-72 on a full scholarship. Mr. Cholakian then attended San Francisco Conservatory of Music on a Ford Foundation Scholarship from 1972-1973. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Philosophy; in 1977. From 1976 to 1978, he served as Chief Administrative Assistant to California State Senator Rose Ann Vuich (the first woman elected to the California State Senate), wherein he was responsible for the Central California field offices and Sacramento legislative office.
He received his law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1981. At Hastings, he was Executive Editor of the Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal and was a Law Review scholarship recipient.
Mr. Cholakian began his legal career as an employment and product liability defense lawyer, practicing with the litigation sections of the management employment law firm of Littler, Mendelson, Fastiff & Tichy (1981-1983) and the product liability section of McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen (now McCutchen Bingham) both in San Francisco (1983-1987), managed the defense practice at Kinder, Wuerfel & Cholakian (1988 through 1999) 25 attorney insurance defense firm in San Francisco.
Mr. Cholakian has successfully defended approximately 30 major jury trials, 27 of which having exposures in excess of $100,000, and is regularly asked to defend cases that have exposures in excess of $1,000,000.00. He has never lost a jury trial. His first trial as an attorney was venued in Santa Clara County LSI Logic v. Ultratech Stepper that resulted in a $1.1 million dollar verdict in favor of his client LSI and its carrier AIG (product liability theory).
Mr. Cholakian specializes primarily in high exposure personal injury/truck defense, uninsured/underinsured motorist product liability/fire subrogation matters, construction defect, insurance coverage and employment/housing discrimination matters. Mr. Cholakian has tried 5 major wrongful death cases to defense verdict. Mr. Cholakian also specializes in the defense of environmental, governmental entity defense and ADA litigation. He has successfully defended Clint Eastwood the Mission Ranch, Santa Clara Housing Authority, and other well established restaurants and businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area against ADA accessibility claims. He regularly defends and has successfully defended at trial 5 habitability/mold cases brought against commercial building owners, (4 in San Francisco Superior Court) recovering in 4 instances large fee awards back to his clients.
Although almost exclusively representing defendants in civil litigation over the years, he tried, at the request of a colleague in 1994, Crow v. State of California, a 9 week Alameda Superior Court trial in which the jury awarded his client, Mr. Crow, a $6.5 million dollar verdict, thought at that time to be the largest personal injury verdict in Alameda County by a non plaintiff attorney in the last 20 years.
Cholakian and Associates also serves as lead defense trial counsel for San Francisco, San Mateo, Oakland, Santa Clara Housing Authorities and also through their National carrier HAARG, defending these governmental entities in their catastrophic premises, employment and ADA cases.
Mr. Cholakian also regularly defends high exposure UM/UIM matters, having successfully defended a $5,000,000 excess UM claim for State Farm that resulted in a reconstruction of the accident 4 hours outside of Calcutta that he supervised on what was known as the “Highway of Death” and included depositions in India’s High Court in Calcutta, India.
Mr. Cholakian has also defended major construction site accident cases, has defended Great America Amusement Park in a highly publicized wrongful death case in 1989, has taken expert and lay witness depositions in Europe, Asia, and South America including another high exposure motor vehicle case (Prince Diana’s former surgeon was video deposed in London); 8 witness depositions in Calcutta, India; (catastrophic San Francisco construction site accident trial) 3 medical expert depositions in Cork, Ireland; (Military accident case) Hamburg, Germany; and (major San Francisco cable car catastrophic injury case) Schweinfurt, Germany (2 occasions); (defended major wine cork manufacturer, litigation involving 6 major wineries) U.S and Canada; and (5 fatality case) 8 depositions San Salvador, Dominican Republic.
In 2006, Mr. Cholakian was the recipient of Farmers/Zurich Commercial Claims “Gladiator of the Year” award. The Gladiator of the Year award is presented annually by Farmers/Zurich in recognition of outstanding trial results to its top outside trial attorneys in California. For the 2nd time, he received the 2009 Farmers/Zurich Gladiator of the Year Award for trial work in 2009. In 2008, Mr. Cholakian received from Farmer/Zurich, Director of Commercial Claims, the Zurich Values and Visions Medallion for epitomizing core values of Respect, Integrity, Achievement and Social Responsibility.
He has twice been a panelist speaker at the NASP National Subrogation Convention, speaking on product and fire liability issues affecting subrogation recoveries in significant cases. He also has repeatedly been designated by his peers as a Northern California “Super Lawyer”, a designation received by only 5% of 10,000 Bay Area Lawyers. Only 13 lawyers in Northern and Central California were designated in the “Personal Injury Defense” category.
Mr. Cholakian is a member of the following organizations: Defense Research Institute (DRI) 1988 - Present, the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) 1990 - 2003, the Northern California Association of Defense Counsel, the American Bar Association, the San Mateo Bar Association, the Bar Association of San Francisco, the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association, the California Trial Lawyers Association, Co-Chair of the Northern California Chapter of National Association of Subrogation Professionals 2004-2006 (NASP), and Trucking Industry Defense Association (TIDA) 1998 - Present, Armenian-American and Italian American Bar Associations.
Mr. Cholakian is in his 10th term as President of the San Francisco Defense Association, a 40 year old Bay Area defense attorney organization comprised of civil defense litigators. Six State Supreme Court Justices have been guest speakers in the past two years. Mr. Cholakian also sits on the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors of the City Club of San Francisco and previously on the Parish Counsel of St. John’s Armenian Orthodox Church in San Francisco.
ATTORNEYS
Colin R. Hatcher graduated from London University in London, U.K., with a Bachelor’s Degree (BA with Honors), receiving a Double First Class Honors awarded for English/Drama. He received his J.D. from Santa Clara Law School with honors in 2001.
Mr. Hatcher specializes in truck litigation, product liability, personal injury litigation, intentional torts, landlord/tenant, premises liability, products liability, and has tried 5 significant cases to verdict. He is an experienced trial attorney and is also Special Counsel to the firm.
David W. Tate received his J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 1987. Mr. Tate specializes in insurance defense, property and casualty, FEHA and ADA, business, personal injury, real property, product liability, professional liability, and trust/estate litigation. Mr. Tate also provides services as a mediator, and is a member of the Probate mediation panel with the Superior Court, County of San Mateo.
Mr. Tate is also a Certified Public Accountant, has served as the Audit Committee Chair of the YMCA of Santa Clara Valley, and has authored numerous articles and other materials on employer employment practices, audit committees, nursing homes, and trusts, estates and elder law.
David L. Crowe received his B.A. degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1976 and his J.D. degree from Santa Clara University in 1979. In 1986, he obtained a trial certificate from the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. Mr. Crowe has successfully litigated a wide range of cases involving personal injury, premises liability, products liability, public entities, elder abuse, property damage, and subrogation matters throughout his more than 25 year career as a civil litigation attorney.
Mr. Crowe has handled approximately 15 jury trials in Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Sonoma, Santa Clara, Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties including motor vehicle; premises liability; land use and construction accidents. He is a member of the Associate of Defense Counsel for Northern California and the Alameda County Bar Association. Mr. Crowe has also served as an arbitrator and Judge Pro-Temp for the Superior Court of Santa Clara County.
Jennifer A. Kung graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in English Literature in 1990 and her J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law in 1993. Ms. Kung has experience handling all aspects of civil litigation in the areas of product liability, construction defect, medical malpractice, subrogation, premises liability, business litigation, municipality liability, landlord/tenant matters and real estate litigation. She is a member of the California State Bar Association and the Alameda County Bar Association. She has been a member of the California State Bar Association since 1993. Jennifer is Special Counsel to the firm.
Richard A. Dana graduated from University of California, Santa Barbara with a B.A. in History in 1992, and he graduated from University of California, Hastings College of the Law with his J.D. in 1998. Mr. Dana has experience handling all aspects of civil litigation in the areas of insurance bad faith, construction defect, elder abuse, premises liability, business litigation, and insurance defense. He has been a member of the California State Bar Association since 1998.
Julianne Mizer graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A. in Psychology in 1988. She received her J.D. from California Western School of Law in 1991. Ms. Mizer is an experienced trial attorney who has experience handling all aspects of civil litigation in the areas of catastrophic personal injury, professional malpractice, premises liability, construction litigation, and public entity liability. She has been a member of the California State Bar Association since 1991.
Kimberly Millington graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a B.A. in English in 1987. She received her J.D. from Southwestern School of Law in 1993 where she was on Law Review. Ms. Millington is an experienced attorney who has tried cases in State and Federal Court.
Jeremy M. Jessup graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo with a B.S. in Social Science in 1997. He received his J.D. from University of Pacific McGeorge School of Law in 2000. Mr. Jessup is an experienced trial attorney who has experience handling all aspects of civil litigation in the areas of personal injury, premises liability, contract dispute and creditor rights. He has been a member of the California State Bar Association since 2000. He is also admitted to practice before U.S. District Court, Central District of California, Northern District of California and Eastern District of California.
PARALEGALS
Deborah Hatcher received her B.S. in Business Administration with a minor in Mathematics from Northeastern State University in 1999. From 2000-2006 she worked at Bay Associates, as an expediter, scheduler and production control manager. She has completed two years of law school.
Michael Gormley received his paralegal training and certification through U.C. Berkeley’s Extension Program in 1999. Michael is an experienced civil litigation paralegal with over 10 plus years of experience in the areas of insurance defense, catastrophic personal injury, products liability, construction litigation, employment litigation, and pharmaceutical litigation.