Gordon & Rees Los Angeles partner Asim K. Desai has been appointed to the 2015 International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) Trial Academy, a seven-day program that blends faculty instruction and demonstration with individual student participation.
The IADC Trial Academy – to be held Aug. 1-7, 2015, at Stanford Law School in Palo Alto, Calif. – is one of the oldest and most respected programs for developing defense trial advocacy skills. The faculty consists of leading defense trial lawyers selected on a national basis from different regions of the country. Each of the 15 faculty members is assigned to a group of five to seven students, which allows for individualized attention and instruction.
Desai is a litigation partner based in Los Angles and serves as co-chair of the Gordon & Rees Bad Faith Practice Group. He has more than 15 years of trial experience, which includes the successful representation of a wide range of clients in multimillion-dollar exposure cases. He is routinely retained to associate or substitute in as trial counsel on the eve of trial in multimillion-dollar exposure cases and has served as regional trial troubleshooter for several of the nation’s largest property and casualty insurers in high-stakes litigated cases. Desai has handled matters in areas including insurance bad faith, corporate fraud, commercial litigation, product liability, intellectual property and catastrophic personal injuries.
Desai is a member of the Defense Research Institute’s National Governance Committee and Insurance Law Steering Committee, as well as a vice chair of the IADC’s Trial Techniques and Tactics, Insurance and Reinsurance, and Business Litigation Committees. He has authored numerous articles on trial preparation and techniques, insurance bad faith, unauthorized practice of law and punitive damages, and he is routinely invited to speak for various national organizations such as the Property Loss Research Bureau/Liability Insurance Research Bureau, the American Conference Institute, DRI, and the IADC.
Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, Gordon Rees is a national litigation and business transactions firm with 32 offices in 20 states. In 2014, The National Law Journal ranked Gordon Rees 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. 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" list.
For information about the 43rd Annual IADC Trial Academy, click here.