Jim Sinunu
James N. Sinunu specializes in toxic tort and environmental matters, and has tried a variety of cases throughout the state of California. His clients have ranged from computer manufacturers, chemical distributors, and foreign mining corporations to dairy farmers, local contractors and public entities. His practice includes product liability, insurance coverage, residential and nursing home care litigation, hospitality practice, construction defect, and commercial law. He regularly serves as an arbitrator, mediator, and judge pro tem.
Mr. Sinunu has practiced law in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than thirty years, and in San Francisco since 1993. He received his A.B. in Economics from Stanford University in 1968 and his J.D. from Hastings College of the Law in 1974. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy from 1968 to 1971 and as Planning Commissioner for the town of Los Altos Hills from 1992 to 1994.
Mr. Sinunu has been a regular lecturer, with recent topics including Defending Dissolved Corporations, presented to the Association of Defense Counsel of North California and Nevada (ADCNC); Staying Within Yourself and Your Area of Expertise, presented to the Forensic Expert Witness Association; Settlement Analysis in California (describing California’s method of calculating damages), presented to the ADCNC; and Distinguishing Between Malignancies in Asbestos Cases (American Conference Institute). When elected to the Board of Directors of the ADCNC in 2002, he formed the Toxic Tort Substantive Law committee and organized an annual lecture series for Northern California defense attorneys which continues to the present time. He is the author of Mesothelioma v. Lung Cancer: The Diagnosis and its Effect on Juror Perceptions, Harris Martin Columns, June 2004.
Mr. Sinunu is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the Association of Defense Counsel of Northern California and Nevada (Board of Directors 2002 – 2005), and the Defense Research Institute. He is a founding member of the Asbestos Risk Analysis Group, an organization providing counsel to companies and forecasting the future of asbestos litigation. He is a member of the California, San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Los Angeles County Bar Associations. He is admitted to practice law in California, and in the US District Courts for the Northern and Eastern Districts of California and the District of Arizona.
