Subrogation Department History

White and Williams LLP, founded in 1899, is the oldest firm in the nation to maintain an ongoing subrogation practice. In the early 1940s, C. Laurence Cushmore, one of the firms eight lawyers practicing during WWII, represented insurance companies in subrogation and property damage litigation with the Insurance Company of North America as the major client. After WWII, Mr. Cushmore continued in this specialty as part of the litigation group headed by Wilson White after his return from military service. Mr. White, son of one of the firms two founders, was later to become counsel to President Eisenhower and the Attorney General of Pennsylvania.

In 1948, Richard Hopkins joined the firm and learned the subrogation specialty under Mr. Cushmore and continued to work with him in the subrogation practice until he retired in the 1970s. Mr. Hopkins carried on the subrogation specialty in Pennsylvania with two associates.

In 1978, Peter Parashes, the department's current chairman, joined the group after having prosecuted cases for the U.S. Department of Labor under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, with particular emphasis on accidents involving fires and explosions in steel mills and foundries.

The subrogation practice expanded into New Jersey in 1978 and, by the mid 1980s, the Subrogation Department included six associates and four paralegals (including current partners William Schmidt and Karon Martin). The practice continued to expand with the group handling the mid-Atlantic states. Up through this time and until the 1990s, the department adhered to the traditions established by the firm's founders which included an avoidance of advertising or marketing the practice of law. Client following was based on performance and record of service to the client.

By the mid 1990s, after enjoying successes and the trials of numerous multi-million dollar cases and representation of insurers in multi-plaintiff, high profile losses such as the Meridian Bank Building fire of 1991 where the subrogation department successfully represented one of the largest, if not the largest, consortium of carriers, the department again expanded its geographic coverage to all states east of the Mississippi while concomitantly increasing its staff at a deliberate pace until it reached its current size of seven partners, twenty associates (most of whom have in excess of six years experience) and eight paralegals. The partners, all of whom have tried numerous major cases, have been recognized for their performance in a variety of ways including selection as Pennsylvania Super Lawyers, election to the American Board of Trial Advocates, receipt of A ratings by Martindale-Hubbell, retention as expert witnesses on subrogation issues by other firms, and selection as presenters at national conferences on subrogation and in-house programs for the various departments of the twenty-plus insurance clients.

In the future, it is expected that the department will continue to grow and expand but only at a pace and to an extent that will allow continued adherence to the standards of excellence in legal practice and client service that are part of the tradition of White and Williams, LLP.