California

Polsinelli has grown beyond its Kansas City roots to inhabit various strategic locations throughout the country. The firm’s aggressive expansion over the years has equipped it with breadth and depth in many areas of litigation, while still maintaining its premier reputation as a go-to litigation firm for the healthcare industry.

      Chicago’s Mary Clare Bonaccorsi previously served as Polsinelli’s Cross-Department Litigation Chair, while keeping an active practice mainly focusing on the healthcare industry, routinely leading high-stakes corporate internal investigations for clients in healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry. Additionally, her casework often involves false claims act litigation in both state and federal courts throughout the country. Thomas Gemmell and Daniel Reinberg join Bonaccorsi in the Chicago office. Gemmell’s practice mixes IP and business litigation. He leads several industry-specific practices, serving as lead of the unmanned systems and advanced robotics practice and co-lead of both the aviation practice and the transportation and logistics practice. Reinberg like Bonaccorsi concentrates his practice on the healthcare industry.

      John Peterson bridges a geographic and practice divide, practicing in Nashville and Chattanooga as well as Los Angeles, Peterson is a commercial litigator with vast experience in securities as well as real estate, and he is yet another Polsinelli partner devoted to healthcare litigation, an industry essential to Tennessee's economy. New addition to this year’s Litigation Star ranking is Atlanta-based partner Kurt Erskine. His practice’s focus is white collar crime, both investigating and litigating cases against state and federal entities. He is leading a healthcare company through a civil rights investigation conducted by the Department of Justice. Beyond the healthcare industry, Erskine is handling securities and insider trading fraud investigations by the SEC and DOJ, as well as a fraud case filed by the FBI and DOJ. Farah Nicol operates out of the firm’s Raleigh and Los Angeles offices and serves chair of the firm’s litigation department -- the first leader to not be based in Kansas City, the firm’s mainstay. Nicol’s primary focus is on product liability and toxic tort litigation.

     Rounding out the South, Dallas partner Adrienne Frazior debuts this year as a Litigation Star. She leads government investigations with an added expertise in employee benefits. Currently, Frazior defends companies that managed and administered self-funded health benefit plans in a Department of Labor investigation and subsequent litigation. She also defends a company in a matter alleging violations of Missouri Sunshine Laws, initiated by the state’s Attorney General.

     Polsinelli has maintained a commitment to upholding its labor and employment practice. Denise Drake, chair of the labor and employment practice, is among the firm’s leading, Missouri-based litigators. Drake is a leader through and through – leading the practice, the expansion into growing markets, and clients in their disputes. She has been consistently distinguished as a Labor & Employment Star since its inception, maintaining the status with a roster of notable class action disputes. Los Angeles litigator September Rea serves as the firm’s arbitration and dispute resolution vice chair, with Colorado-based Donald Samuels serving alongside her as chair. . Rea leads the California-based lawsuits arising from an investigation into allegations of C-suite misconduct that included abuse, harassment, retaliation and unfair competition. The case has spanned Italy, California, and Texas. Dallas’ Angelo Spinola specializes in handling labor and employment disputes on behalf of clients in the home health industry, particularly hospice and homecare companies. He recently resolved a lawsuit alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) challenging the company’s alleged practice of not including certain nondiscretionary bonuses in the regular rate when calculating overtime pay.