Bio

Howard Garfield has spent his entire legal career, after graduation from Harvard Law School, in the private practice of law. He is currently Of Counsel to the Lesser Law Group with offices in San Francisco, San Rafael and San Francisco. In the immediate past he was Of Counsel to Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP in its San Francisco office and a partner in the San Francisco office of Chicago-based Meckler Bulger & Tilson LLP and then Of Counsel to that firm. Prior to that affiliation, he was as a partner in and managing partner of the distinguished San Francisco law firm of Long & Levit. Throughout his career, his practice has focused on the representation of professionals (principally lawyers and accountants, but others as well), corporate officers and directors, and businesses in employment, consumer, copyright and trademark, unfair competition and general litigation. He has also extensively represented insurance brokers, insurance policyholders and insurers. He has served as a mediator, arbitrator, and has qualified and testified as an expert witness in California in both state and federal courts on a variety of subjects, including the reasonableness of attorneys' fees, insurance bad faith, the standard of care for lawyers and insurance claims handlers, and the duties of corporate officers and directors, managing members of limited liability companies, partners and other fiduciaries.

Mr. Garfield maintains an active counseling and litigation practice that emphasizes the representation insurance policyholders and insurers, employers in employment-related litigation and arbitration, employment counseling and and investigations, civil litigation of all kinds, including partnership disputes and the prosecution and defense of claims against professionals, such as lawyers, accountants, insurance agents and brokers, real estate agents and brokers, officers and directors of corporations, partners of general and limited partnerships, and members of limited liability companies. He has tried numerous cases in both federal and state courts in California and in other parts of the country and in private arbitrations administered by the American Arbitration Association, JAMS, ADRServices, and FINRA and other alternative dispute providers. He has also been an expert witness on insurance matters, the standard of care of attorneys, insurance bad faith, breach of fiduciary duties and as served as an American Arbitration Association arbitrator and a member of the mediator panel of Resolution Remedies, an alternative dispute resolution provider.

His education includes one year at Columbia University in New York City, three years at Stanford University, from which he was graduated as Valedictorian of his class with Great Distinction, Honors in Humanities, and Phi Beta Kappa (elected in his junior year), a year at the Harvard Graduate School in a Ph.D. program in Religion and Philosophy, and the Harvard Law School from which he was graduated cum laude.

He has served as counsel to and a member of the board of directors of an international charity that focused on the care and education of children in poor countries. He has a Martindale Hubbell of AV Preeminent and is also listed in Lawyers of Distinction and Northern California Super Lawyers. He admitted to all the state and federal courts in California, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and is a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Howard M. Garfield

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