The San Francisco Business Times delivered a special issue featuring the 2009 Best Lawyers in the Bay Area. William Coblentz, Jeffry Bernstein, William Hutton, Jonathan Bass, Pamela Duffy, Philip Feldman, Frederick Fields, James Mitchell, Harry O’Brien, Cynthia Rowland, and Tay Via were listed in the inaugural issue of Best Lawyers in San Francisco.
Many of the Coblentz attorneys have been on the Best Lawyers list for over 10 years. This year’s national list is based on more than 2.2 million individual evaluations. The inclusions are strictly based on peer review, and fewer than 3 percent of practicing attorneys in the U.S. are included on the final list. Listings cannot be bought, and no purchase is required to be included. In this regard, Best Lawyers remains the gold standard of reliability and integrity in lawyer ratings.
The list includes 889 Bay Area Attorneys representing 296 law firms. That is an average of 3:1 attorneys to each law firm. Coblentz has 11 lawyers listed in Best Lawyers – more than 3 times the average.
Pamela Duffy was quoted throughout the editorial on pro bono work in law firms as was Frederick Fields, recently honored by the Bay Area’s Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights as the recipient of the Keta Taylor Colby Award. Tay Via and Pamela Duffy provided insightful remarks in the article covering mentoring and developing a firm’s future leadership.