John J. Robinson and Cullen Guilmartin have joined the Connecticut office of Gordon & Rees as partners and members of the firm’s Environmental and Toxic Tort Group, as well as its Products Liability and Insurance practices. Both were formerly with the Hartford office of McCarter & English, LLP.
Robinson’s primary areas of practice are complex products liability, toxic tort, construction, pharmaceutical and medical device litigation. He regularly counsels clients on product safety issues and risk management, and he has tried cases substantially or to verdict in numerous jurisdictions, including Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maryland. Since 2002, Robinson has served as Defense Liaison Coordinating Counsel for the Connecticut asbestos defense bar. He serves as primary trial counsel and consulting counsel for numerous clients, at all levels ranging from nationwide to the local counsel level.
Guilmartin’s mass tort and product liability experience includes defending claims against manufacturers of complex commercial machinery, medical devices, consumer products and pharmaceuticals. He has handled complex personal injury suits involving alleged catastrophic injuries, including wrongful death and survivorship claims, and has experience defending property claims involving significant premise damages and economic loss. He also advises and represents clients on a variety of product liability law issues with a particular emphasis in the areas of product recalls and product safety.
As a team, Robinson & Guilmartin recently handled the successful defense of one of the largest products liability property damages cases in Connecticut on behalf of a utility boiler manufacturer, securing outright dismissal without a settlement payment, shortly before trial, on a near $40M claim.
“We are extremely pleased to be adding two attorneys with such impressive credentials to our ranks,” said Dennis Brown, managing partner of Gordon & Rees’s Connecticut office. “Their practices and client contacts are very complementary to our own, and I anticipate that they will be working closely with colleagues in our offices across the country.”
Founded in San Francisco in 1974, Gordon & Rees is a national litigation and business transactions firm with more than 600 lawyers and 33 offices in 21 states. In 2014, The National Law Journal ranked the firm 89th on its list of the largest U.S. firms and The American Lawyer ranked the firm at No. 131 on the Am Law 200 and at No. 26 on its Diversity Scorecard. Founded in 1974, Gordon & Rees has been recognized on the “BTI Client Service A-Team” survey for the past three years and has been honored as a 2014 "Go-To Law Firm" for Fortune 500 companies as well as selected for inclusion on Corporate Counsel magazine’s 2014 “Who Represents America’s Biggest Companies."