press releases

Millennium Tower Homeowners Tap Petrocelli as Lead Counsel, Rounding Out All-Star Legal Team Prior to Lawsuit

Representing the Lone Entity with Legal Standing to Sue for a Structural Repair, Top US Trial Lawyer Joins Land Use Counsel Shanagher, HOA Ace Adams

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO—February 7, 2017—The governing board representing homeowners in the 58-story residential Millennium Tower that has seized headlines for its reported sinking and tilting problems today announced that it has engaged nationally renowned trial lawyer Daniel M. Petrocelli as its lead litigation counsel. 

Petrocelli, who heads the trial practice for the global law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP, first rose to prominence with his successful representation of murder victim Ronald Goldman’s family in the civil suit against O.J. Simpson. A perennial award winner in Law360, Daily Journal, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications for his litigation practice, Petrocelli has “spent a career winning some of the most complex and high-profile cases of the last two decades” according to the Thomson Reuters legal publication Super Lawyers. Honored as the nation’s “Leading Trial Lawyer of the Year” in 2014 by The Legal 500, Petrocelli’s roster of high-profile clients has also included many of the country’s largest companies and a star-studded array of prominent individuals. With a diverse practice that includes real estate litigation, Petrocelli has tried and won numerous cases, including a verdict as high as US$1 billion. Petrocelli is joined by O’Melveny partner Vision Winter, who will supervise and support the full team of lawyers, experts, and consultants. 

“We will proceed swiftly to secure all available legal relief from all responsible parties to assure that Millennium Tower is restored to pristine condition,” Petrocelli said. 

As a homeowners’ association, the Millennium Tower Association holds sole authority under state law to sue responsible parties to require a comprehensive repair and restoration, and to secure other relief in the high-profile dispute. The tower’s 16-inch settlement since opening in 2009 far exceeds the developer’s promise that Millennium Tower would sink no more than four to six inches over its entire lifespan. The tower is also tilting approximately two inches to the northwest at the base—and it is reportedly as much as 15 inches off vertical at the top.

Petrocelli joins an impressive legal team assembled by the Millennium Tower Association, which already includes real estate and construction defect litigation attorney Denis Shanagher, a San Francisco-based partner at the law firm of Duane Morris. Shanagher has represented real estate developers, owners’ associations, and insurers in complex real estate and construction defect dispute mediations, arbitrations, and jury trials for more than 35 years, with verdicts, settlements, and other resolutions in excess of US$1 billion. He also regularly negotiates with local and regional regulatory agencies in areas of development and real estate. He is an eight-time Northern California Super Lawyer with multiple honors in business litigation.

Millennium Tower homeowners are also represented by California’s preeminent homeowners’ association counsel, Adrian Adams. Adams co-founded the law firm of Adams Stirling, PLC, with Lawrence Stirling, the former California Assemblyman who (along with then-Assemblyman and former Governor Gray Davis) authored the Davis-Stirling Act, which has governed community associations statewide since 1986. Adams has written extensively on condominium law and is a past president of the Foundation for California Community Association Education. Adams is joined on Millennium Tower Association legal team by Jasmine F. Hale, an Adams Stirling law partner with more than a decade of experience in community association and corporate law. 

CONTACT:
Matt Dorsey
Lighthouse Public Affairs, LLC
(415) 640-6288
matt@LH-PA.com

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