The following is a brief summary of the careers of the firm's partner and associates.
PARTNER
Kevin K. Cholakian was a director/shareholder at a well known, AV rated, 25 attorney San Francisco insurance bad faith and liability defense firm, which he left in December 1999 after 12 years as managing partner of the firm’s liability defense practice. At that point he brought his practice to Cholakian & Associates, which he began in January 2000.
Mr. Cholakian attended North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina during his senior year of high school on a full scholarship. Mr. Cholakian then attended San Francisco Conservatory of Music on a Ford Foundation Scholarship from 1972-1973. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Philosophy from California State University Fresno in 1977. From 1976 to 1978, he served as Chief Administrative Assistant to California State Senator Rose Ann Vuich (the first woman elected to the California State Senate), wherein he was responsible for the Central California field offices and Sacramento legislative office.
He received his law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1981. At Hastings, he was Executive Editor of the Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal and was a law review scholarship recipient.
Mr. Cholakian began his legal career as an employment and product liability defense lawyer, practicing with the litigation sections of the management employment law firm of Littler, Mendelson, Fastiff & Tichy (1981-1983) and the product liability section of McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen (now McCutchen Bingham) in San Francisco (1983-1987), and managed the defense practice at Kinder, Wuerfel & Cholakian (1988 through 1999), a 25 attorney insurance defense firm in San Francisco.
Mr. Cholakian has successfully defended approximately 25 major jury trials, 22 of which had an exposure in excess of $100,000, and he is regularly asked to defend cases that have exposures in excess of $1,000,000. He has never lost a jury trial. His first trial as an attorney was venued in Santa Clara County LSI Logic v. Ultratech Stepper that resulted in a $1.1 million dollar verdict in favor of his client LSI and its carrier AIG (product liability theory).
Although almost exclusively representing defendants in civil litigation over the years, he tried, at the request of a colleague in 1994, Crow v. State of California, a 9 week Alameda Superior Court trial in which the jury awarded his client, Mr. Crow, a $6.5 million dollar verdict, thought to be the largest personal injury verdict in Alameda County by a non plaintiff attorney in the last 20 years.
Mr. Cholakian also regularly defends high exposure UM/UIM matters. He successfully defended a $5,000,000 excess UM claim for State Farm that resulted in a reconstruction of the accident 4 hours outside of Calcutta that he supervised on what was known as the “highway of death” and included depositions in India’s High Court in Calcutta, India. He has defended other such cases involving celebrity claimants, including Reggie Jackson.
Mr. Cholakian has also defended major construction site accident cases, such as the highly publicized wrongful death case at Great America Amusement Park in 1989. He has taken expert and lay witness depositions in London on another high exposure uninsured motorist case (Prince Diana’s former surgeon was video deposed); he handled eight lay witness depositions in Calcutta, India; he managed medical expert depositions involved in a catastrophic San Francisco construction site accident, in Cork, Ireland; a Military accident case in Hamburg; and a major San Francisco cable car catastrophic injury case, which took him to Schweinfurt, Germany on two occasions; litigation regarding tainted wine corks in the U.S and Canada; and a five-person fatality case in South America.
Mr. Cholakian, on behalf of his insurance clients, has also recovered in excess of ten million dollars in subrogation recoveries, based primarily on product liability issues. Aside from the rare plaintiff case where no insurance carrier is a defendant (other than subrogation), Mr. Cholakian specializes primarily in high exposure personal injury/truck defense, Uninsured/Underinsured motorist product liability/fire subrogation matters, construction defect, insurance coverage and employment/housing discrimination matters. Mr. Cholakian also specializes in the defense of environmental, governmental entity defense and ADA litigation. He has successfully defended Clint Eastwood, the Mission Ranch and other well established restaurants and businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area against ADA accessibility claims. He regularly defends and has successfully defended at trial five habitability/mold cases brought against commercial building owners, (four in San Francisco Superior Court) recovering in four instances large fee awards back to his clients.
In 2006, Mr. Cholakian was the recipient of Farmers/Zurich Commercial Claims “Gladiator of the Year” award. The Gladiator of the Year award is presented annually by Farmers/Zurich in recognition of outstanding trial results to its top outside trial attorneys in California. In 2008, Mr. Cholakian received from Farmer/Zurich, Director of Commercial Claims, the "Zurich Values and Visions Medallion" for epitomizing the core values of Respect, Integrity, Achievement and Social Responsibility. He has twice been a panelist speaker at the NASP National Subrogation Convention, speaking on product and fire liability issues affecting subrogation recoveries in significant cases. He also has been designated by his peers as a Northern California “Super Lawyer”, a designation received by only 5% of 10,000 Bay Area Lawyers. Only 13 lawyers in Northern and Central California were designated in the “Personal Injury Defense” category.
Cholakian and Associates also serves as lead defense trial counsel for San Francisco, Oakland, Marin and Santa Clara Housing Authorities through their National carrier HAARG, defending these governmental entities in their catastrophic premises, employment and ADA cases.
Mr. Cholakian is a member of the following organizations: Defense Research Institute (DRI) 1988 - Present; the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) 1990 - 2003; the Northern California Association of Defense Counsel; the American Bar Association; the San Mateo Bar Association; the Bar Association of San Francisco; the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association; the California Trial Lawyers Association; Co-Chair of the Northern California Chapter of National Association of Subrogation Professionals 2004-2006 (NASP); and Trucking Industry Defense Association (TIDA) 1998 - Present; and the Armenian-American and Italian American Bar Associations.
Mr. Cholakian is in his 8th term as President of the San Francisco Defense Association, a 40 year old Bay Area defense attorney organization comprised of civil defense litigators. Five State Supreme Court Justices have been guest speakers in the past two years. Mr. Cholakian also sits on the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors of the City Club of San Francisco and previously on the Parish Counsel of St. John’s Armenian Orthodox Church in San Francisco.
ATTORNEYS
Lin L. Duiven received her B.A. degree in French from the University of Michigan in 1963 and her J.D. cum laude from Santa Clara University School of Law in 1991. She received the American Jurisprudence Award in Insurance Law.
Ms. Duiven’s practice focuses on product liability, first party claims, wrongful eviction and habitability claims. Her trial experience includes personal injury, employment/age discrimination, and wrongful eviction/discrimination cases in Superior Court and Federal Courts in Northern California. She has assisted Mr. Cholakian in numerous trials in the Bay Area. Her principal practice at this time is defending serious Uninsured Motorist and complicated catastrophic truck and vehicle accident litigation. She is of counsel to the firm. One of her daughters is a Boalt Hall graduate and chief prosecutor for the City of Federal Way, a suburb of Seattle.
Colin R. Hatcher graduated from London University in London, U.K., with a B.A. Degree (with Honors), receiving a Double First Class Honors awarded for English/Drama. He received his J.D. from Santa Clara Law School with Honors in 2001.
Mr. Hatcher specializes in truck litigation, product liability, personal injury litigation, intentional torts, landlord/tenant, premises liability, products liability, and has tried five significant cases to verdict.
Vivian L. Lerche graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a B.A. in Social Science and received her J.D. from the University of San Francisco in 1990. She was a member of the University of San Francisco Law Review.
Ms. Lerche for over 20 years, has focused in primarily construction defect and apartment complex litigation, personal injury, product and premises liability, landlord/tenant disputes, professional liability and insurance coverage.
David W. Tate received his J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 1987.
Mr. Tate specializes in insurance defense, property and casualty, FEHA and ADA, business, personal injury, real property, product liability, professional liability, and trust/estate litigation. Mr. Tate also provides services as a mediator, and is a member of the Probate mediation panel with the Superior Court, County of San Mateo.
Mr. Tate is also a Certified Public Accountant, has served as the Audit Committee Chair of the YMCA of Santa Clara Valley, and has authored numerous articles and other materials on employer employment practices, audit committees, nursing homes, and trusts, estates and elder law.
David L. Crowe received his B.A. degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1976 and his J.D. degree from Santa Clara University in 1979. In 1986, he obtained a trial certificate from the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.
Mr. Crowe specializes in truck litigation, premises liability, products liability, public entities, elder abuse, property damage, and subrogation matters throughout his more than 25 year career as a civil litigation attorney.
Mr. Crowe was the senior litigation attorney for a major insurance carrier for 18 years, during which time he managed their San Jose litigation office. Throughout his career, both as counsel for major insurance carriers and in private practice, Mr. Crowe has successfully defended a variety of insurance related case. Among the matters handled by Mr. Crowe are a pediatric brain injury case for a private school in which he obtained a defense verdict after a two month jury trial; the successful defense of a municipality in a flood case brought by 85 homeowners; a defense verdict for a homeowners association in a bicycle accident involving permanent shoulder injury to a professional baseball player; wrongful death case against an assisted living facility and retired peace officer; and an elder abuse case involving significant burns to a resident of a residential care facility.
Mr. Crowe has handled approximately 15 jury trials in Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Sonoma, Santa Clara, Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties including motor vehicle; premises liability; land use and construction accidents. He is a member of the Associate of Defense Counsel for Northern California and the Alameda County Bar Association. Mr. Crowe has also served as an arbitrator and Judge Pro-Temp for the Superior Court of Santa Clara County.
Lauren Koblitz graduated from The George Washington University in 2002 with a B.A. in Criminal Justice and received her J.D. from Suffolk University Law School. While at Suffolk Law, she was a student attorney for the Harvard University Law School, Tenant Advocacy Project and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. She was also a participant on the Suffolk National Moot Court Team.
Ms. Koblitz has experience handling all aspects of civil litigation in the areas of employment law, products liability, construction defects, landlord/tenant matters, and personal injury.
Sabrina M. Berdux graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.A. in Political Science, where she was a Golden Key National Society member. She received her J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law in 2006 and also received her MBA from Golden Gate University in 2006. While at Golden Gate, Ms. Berdux received the Witkin Award for Academic Excellence in Pre-Trial Civil Litigation and clerked at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. She also volunteers as a mentor for the San Francisco Law Academy.
Ms. Berdux has experience handling a variety of civil litigation matters in the areas of personal injury, product liability, employment law, and landlord/tenant matters.
Jennifer A. Kung graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in English Literature in 1990 and received her J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law in 1993.
During Ms. Kung’s 16 years of experience, she has focused on defending product liability, truck litigation, construction defect, medical malpractice, premises liability, business litigation, municipality liability, landlord/tenant matters and real estate litigation. She also has a strong subrogation background. She is a member of the California State Bar Association and the Alameda County Bar Association. Ms. Kung also serves as President of the Albany Commons Homeowners Association.
PARALEGALS
Deborah Hatcher received her B.S. in Business Administration with a minor in Mathematics from Northeastern State University in 1999. From 2000-2006 she worked at Bay Associates, as an expediter, scheduler and production control manager. She has completed two years of law school.