For the first time in history, six members of Walkup Melodia Kelly and Schoenberger have been named to the prestigious “Best Lawyers In America ” list by their peers. For 25 years, the top lawyers in the U.S. have made The Best Lawyers In America the leading legal referral guide by candidly evaluating the work of other top lawyers in the same specialties and geographic areas.
The voting pool consists primarily of lawyers listed in the previous edition of Best Lawyers. Nominees who get particularly high votes may also be asked to vote. When new specialties are added, the voting pool consists of listed lawyers in related specialties and/or listed lawyers in the same specialty in another jurisdiction, as well as nominees who receive particularly high votes.
In large legal communities (such as New York City and San Francisco ), lawyers are asked to vote only on lawyers in the same specialty and in the same legal community.
The current, 15th edition of The Best Lawyers in America (2009), is based on more than 2.5 million detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers. The Best Lawyers Board of Advisors includes legal luminaries from almost every major world economy as well as general counsel from global companies with business on every continent.
Because lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be included, a listing in Best Lawyers is widely regarded within the legal profession as a signal honor, conferred on a lawyer by his or her peers.
In 2009 Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger celebrates 50 years in practice. Northern California’s oldest firm specializing in injury and wrongful death claims, it was founded by Bruce Walkup, a pioneer in the field of tort litigation, in 1959. The firm’s reputation for aggressive and skilled representation is well known; defense attorneys and their clients recognize the firm’s willingness to try any case if necessary. The firm has secured hundreds of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements for its clients in the areas of automobile accident liability, medical negligence, defective products, dangerous drugs, complex premises liability, truck collisions and government wrongdoing. For 2009, Paul Melodia, Dan Kelly, Doug Saeltzer, Richard Schoenberger, Michael Kelly and Matthew Davis are all listed in The Best Lawyers in America; The same group is listed annually by Northern California SuperLawyers magazine, with Mike and Paul included among the Top 100 northern California attorneys every year since 2005; 4 members of the firm have served as President of the SFTLA; three firm members have served as President of the San Francisco ABOTA chapter; other firm members have been elected to membership in the American College of Trial Lawyers, the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the International Society of Barristers.