Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani welcomes Fulton M. Smith III as a Partner in the firm’s San Francisco office. Mr. Smith joins the firm’s Insurance and Professional Liability Defense practice groups. Mr. Smith joins the firm from Cozen O’Connor, P.C.
Mr. Smith focuses his practice on insurance-related issues and disputes. His 30 years of experience includes risk and strategic counseling of Fortune 500 companies, general liability and professional liability underwriting, regulatory compliance, claim investigation, large U.S. and international subrogation investigations, evaluations and recoveries, as well as first-party commercial, third-party, directors’ and officers’, professional liability, environmental coverage analysis and disputes, including evaluating likelihood of success and valuation of cases for legal financing companies.
His diverse experience includes commercial tenancy jury trials, construction defect litigation, wrongful termination and employment disputes, software licensing disputes, and the defense of municipalities, police and fire chiefs, the California Department of Corrections, and the University of California.
He is an arbitrator for multiple counties in Northern California, and has served repeatedly as an arbitrator/chair for the National Futures Association. Mr. Smith has authored numerous articles on insurance law, lectured on insurance coverage and bad faith issues, given seminars on successfully preparing and trying civil cases for the Stanford Bar Institute and the National Business Institute, and given claims handling and topical seminars to claims professionals.
“We are excited to have Fulton come aboard,” said Adam Sugarman, Managing Partner of the firm’s San Francisco and Oakland offices. “Adding a lawyer of his caliber immediately fortifies our Insurance practice group and broadens our capabilities here in Northern California and across our 50-state platform.”
Mr. Smith is admitted in Texas, California, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and U.S. District Court for the Eastern, Central, Northern, and Southern Districts of California.
He received his J.D. degree from Southern Methodist University School of Law and his Bachelor of Arts from University of California at Los Angeles.
