CHICAGO | SAN FRANCISCO | WASHINGTON DC | NEW YORK | MUMBAI | PUNE
Veteran Drinker Biddle & Reath Litigator and Product-liability Expert Michael Duffy Joins Mindcrest Inc.
PRWeb
January 2009
Veteran Drinker Biddle & Reath litigator and product-liability expert Michael Duffy has joined Mindcrest Inc., the oldest and largest legal services outsourcing company as head of its litigation services division. Duffy will expand Mindcrest's litigation services business on a worldwide basis.
"I see this as an exciting opportunity in the direction the legal market is moving, and a great challenge," said Duffy, (57), who had primary responsibility for more than 40 jury trials in his 30 years as a trial lawyer.
Duffy's experience covered a wide range of complex commercial litigation including intellectual property, product liability, land use, health law and municipal representation. Prior to joining Mindcrest, Duffy settled his 500th case as National Counsel for an international manufacturer of latex medical gloves. In 15 years of litigation covering courts in 39 states Duffy and his trial team did not lose a single case including defense verdicts following jury trials in Alameda County, California and New Orleans, Louisiana.
Duffy sees his new role with Mindcrest as directly related to his experience as a trial attorney. "While I will no longer be actively trying cases I look at my new responsibility as assisting trial lawyers to do their job more effectively and efficiently." Mindcrest has more than 500 common law trained lawyers in Pune and Mumbai, India who conduct document review in large document cases. "While some lawyers will see this as a threat to their bottom line," stated Duffy, " the foresighted ones will seize upon it as a selling opportunity to their clients. With the assistance of companies like Mindcrest they will be able to provide their corporate clients with high quality litigation service on a more economical basis, something particularly important to corporate defendants facing enormous litigation costs and equally severe pressure from management to cut legal budgets."
Duffy has also represented government and private parties in land-use disputes, including eminent domain and contested annexations. For almost 20 years he represented Libertyville Township in Lake County, Ill., which was the first township in the state to approve and fund its own Open Space District. The township now manages 1,600 acres of open land.
Before entering private practice with Gardner Carton & Douglas, the predecessor to Drinker Biddle & Reath, Duffy served as an assistant state's attorney with the Lake County State's Attorney's Office, where he headed the misdemeanor and felony divisions. He also has done pro bono work representing a death row inmate in a post-conviction appeal, participates in the Chicago Volunteer Legal Service program, acts as a mediator for the Lake County Arbitration Center and is a volunteer attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center. Duffy is a graduate of Kenyon College and Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
