Mr. Ellison, President
of Smith Ellison, represents clients in complex business litigation matters. He devotes a majority of his practice to
cases involving insurance coverage related to environmental sites, having
represented insurance companies and policyholders in cases involving thousands
of environmental sites and billions of dollars of alleged response costs,
including more than a dozen sites that individually involved in excess of one
hundred million dollars of alleged response costs. Mr. Ellison also routinely represents
companies in other complex insurance coverage actions, copyright actions, and a
variety of other complex business litigation matters including, inter alia, representing companies in class
actions including securities and consumer class actions, representing a major
oil company in an unfair completion suit against another major oil company, representing
franchisors in disputes with franchisees, representing companies in an array of
contract disputes, and representing individuals and companies in actions
involving an assortment of business tort claims.
Prior to joining Smith Ellison, Mr. Ellison
was a member of the Litigation Department of the international law firm Latham
& Watkins. Mr. Ellison is admitted
to practice before all state and federal courts in California, and has also
practiced before the United States District Courts for the District of Nevada,
District of Massachusetts, Eastern District of Missouri, Western District of Missouri,
Northern District of New York, and Northern District of Texas.
Mr. Ellison earned his J.D. cum laude, from the
University of Michigan and also received an M.A. in Philosophy from Rackham
Graduate School at the University of Michigan. He completed his mediation
training at the Program on Negotiation of Harvard Law School. Prior to
graduate school, he earned his B.A. in Chemistry and Philosophy cum laude from
Cornell University. During summers while at Cornell he conducted research
on thermal analysis of polymers at the Institute of Materials Science of the
University of Connecticut and on issues related to nuclear waste at the
Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. In addition to his
work as an attorney, Mr. Ellison has also served as an adjunct Professor of
Philosophy of Law. He is a member of the State Bar of California, the
Orange County Bar Association, and the Association of Business Trial Lawyers,
and is a founding member of the Celtic Bar Association of Orange County. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Club and the Veterans Canine Intelligence Academy, and a member of the Diversity & Inclusion Committee of the Orange County Bar Association, and has served as Chair of the Orange County Bar Association's Pro Bono Committee and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Ethics Committee of the ABA/YLD. Outside of work, Mr. Ellison enjoys playing
soccer, lacrosse, and golf, riding supersport motorcycles, and spending time
with his wife, adult children, and Irish wolfhounds.
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