The Oakland office opened in April 2014 with attorneys from the firm's Environmental / Toxic Tort Practice Group as well as its administrative and financial group staff members. Together with GRSM's headquarters in downtown San Francisco, the Oakland office enhances the firm’s ability to provide premium client service on both sides of the Bay and simultaneously reduce overhead by locating its staff to lower cost, state-of-the-art building space.
GRSM’s leading Environmental/Toxic Tort Practice Group represents a wide range of corporations in complex litigation involving agricultural chemicals and pesticides, asbestos, chemical, and other environmental torts. Led by national practice group chair Michael Pietrykowski, the group’s lawyers in the Oakland office have a wealth of experience in state, federal, and appellate courts and arbitral venues. For more than three decades, the group has been at the forefront of key pro-defense legal developments limiting liability or avoiding liability altogether. The group’s attorneys have successfully defended tens of thousands of asbestos cases and have tried numerous multiparty asbestos cases, winning defense verdicts.