Murchison & Cumming, LLP Announces New Partners

January 6, 2004

Metropolitan News Enterprise

Los Angeles-based litigation defense firm Murchison & Cumming has named a new senior partner and elevated two associates to partner status, the firm announced yesterday.

Guy R. Gruppie is Murchison & Cumming?s newest senior partner. Gruppie, who practices out of the Los Angeles Office, worked as a reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Times before attending Loyola Law School.

Since joining the firm in 1991, Gruppie has tried numerous cases to verdict in product liability, catastrophic injury and business litigation matters, the firm's statement said. He is a member of several defense counsel organizations, including the Defense Research Institute, and has served as a volunteer mediator for the Los Angeles Superior Court.

The two new partners, Gina E. Och and Casey Kovert, each practiced seven years as associates with the firm.

Och will work out of Murchison & Cumming?s downtown Los Angeles office. Before joining the firm, she was a research attorney for the Los Angeles Superior Court.

With Murchison & Cumming, Och has practiced product liability, business litigation, public utility and international law. Och was the managing editor of the Chicano-Latino Law Review at the UCLA School of Law before obtaining her degree in 1993.

Kovert, who handled complex litigation from the firm?s San Diego office, now manages a new office in Lafayette serving Northern California.

A 1990 graduate of the University of San Diego School of Law and a member of the Association of Northern California Defense Counsel, she practices construction defect, health law and general liability matters in the Sacramento and San Francisco Bay areas.

Murchison & Cummings is one of California?s oldest civil litigation defense firms. The firm operates offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Lafayette and Las Vegas, employing 87 staff attorneys.