In the news.

The Boxer & Gerson firm at large and longtime Partners John Harrigan and Michael Gerson have won recognition in the annual Best Lawyers in America© survey for 2020 in the legal specialty of workers’ compensation. The awards were granted for the Oakland Metropolitan Area, with the firm winning “Best Law Firm” designation and Harrigan winning additional honors as “Lawyer of the Year.” The awards, announced on November 1, marked the third consecutive year that both Harrigan and Gerson have been honored, with the pair switching spots for 2020 after Gerson won “Lawyer of the Year” honors last year.

 

The Best Lawyers awards were launched in 1983 and have since become the most widely hailed recognition of legal excellence in the field. Selections are based on an exhaustive peer-review evaluation, with almost 94,000 industry leading lawyers eligible to vote from around the world.

The 2020 edition analyzed 8.3 million votes in multiple practice areas and geographic locales. Attorneys and firms are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, so inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.”

 

Harrigan joined Boxer & Gerson in 1987 and served as managing partner from 2004 through 2018. He is a certified workers’ compensation specialist and also serves clients seeking Social Security Disability benefits.

 

Gerson co-founded the firm that bears his name in 1977 and is also a certified workers’ compensation specialist. He serves the NFL Players’ Association as panel attorney for workers’ compensation and has represented players on the San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders, and all other association members with a claim in northern California.

 

Said Managing Partner Justin Litvack, who replaced Harrigan in that position earlier this year, “We are always pleased to see our firm and its attorneys honored with awards, particularly when the recognition comes from peers. But awards are definitely icing on the cake for the daily honor of doing important work to help make life better for our clients and community.”
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