December 10, 2009

Cooley Law School Professor Paul Sorensen Named Grand Rapids ‘Bet-The-Company Litigator of the Year’ by Best Lawyers

Associate Professor Paul Sorensen

The Thomas M. Cooley Law School today announced that Associate Professor Paul T. Sorensen has been named the Grand Rapids "Bet-the-Company Litigator of the Year" for 2010 by Best Lawyers. "Bet-the-Company Litigator of the Year" recognizes the best litigation attorneys for high-stakes cases.

Sorensen is a full-time faculty member at Cooley’s Grand Rapids campus where he teaches Torts and Equity & Remedies courses and often serves as a judge for Cooley’s moot court competitions. He joined Cooley in 2007 after a nearly 30-year career at Warner Norcross & Judd LLP in Grand Rapids.

Although Sorensen has significantly reduced his law practice since joining Cooley’s faculty, his selection as "Bet-the-Company Litigator of the Year" recognizes a body of his work from his time with Warner Norcross, where he was a partner, led the firm’s team of labor and employment litigators and defended clients in more than 400 cases of employment litigation. He is currently Of Counsel for the firm. He also has served as president of the Grand Rapids Bar Association, the Western Michigan chapter of the Federal Bar Association and the Legal Assistance Center Board of Trustees.

Best Lawyers, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession, conducts exhaustive peer-review surveys in which attorneys confidentially evaluate their peers. Based on the survey results, Best Lawyers then selects attorneys who receive particularly high ratings for their abilities, professionalism and integrity for "Lawyer of the Year" recognition.

"We continue to believe – as we have believed for more than 25 years – that recognition by one’s peers is the most meaningful form of praise in the legal profession," said Steven Naifeh, managing editor of Best Lawyers. "We would like to congratulate Paul T. Sorensen on being selected as the Grand Rapids Best Lawyers "Bet-the-Company Litigator of the Year" for 2010."

Best Lawyers named 990 attorneys in 129 geographic locations as "Lawyers of the Year" for 2010. Only one attorney in each high-profile specialty area in each designated legal community is honored as the “Lawyer of the Year,” including Grand Rapids attorneys in corporate law, personal injury litigation, labor and employment law, real estate law and bet-the-company litigation specialty areas.

Best Lawyers also publishes an annual referral guide, The Best Lawyers in America, which includes 39,766 attorneys in 80 practice areas, covering all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The current, 16th edition of The Best Lawyers in America (2010), is based on more than 2.8 million detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers.

Cooley Law School is the largest law school in the nation.  Founded in 1972, the private, non-profit law school operates J.D. programs across Michigan in Lansing, Auburn Hills, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor.  Today, Cooley Law School has nearly 14,000 graduates across the nation and worldwide and also offers joint degree and master of laws programs.  Cooley offers enrollment three times a year; in January, May and September.   Additional information about Cooley can be found at cooley.edu.