RAYMOND D. MCELFISH, ESQ: OWNER AND FOUNDER OF THE FIRM

Born in Wichita Kansas and raised in Cumberland, Maryland, where I interned in high school with a civil attorney now Maryland Circuit Court Judge Gary Leisure. I attended college at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland earning a bachelors degree in Economics with minors in Econometrics and Philosophy in 1988 while working for 4 years as a law clerk for the international law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in Washington, D.C. After college, I attended law school at Boston University School of Law where I earned my J.D. degree in 1991. During my 3 years of law school, I worked as a part-time law clerk for a Boston law firm and spent my summers as a summer associate at Simpson, Thatcher & Bartlett in New York City.

After law school, I opened my own practice in New York City representing motor carriers and bus companies handling baggage claims and small claims matters in the very beginning. Since 1992, I have represented national and regional motor carriers, trucking companies, TPAs, insurers, including primary, excess and reinsurers, in the field of transportation and insurance law in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. I have handled all aspects of transportation and insurance litigation including personal injury, product liability, coverage and regulatory. I am a member of the New York and Massachusetts State Bar Associations and am admitted to all four Federal Districts in New York and the District of Massachusetts. In 2002, after 10 years of practice, I took the California State bar and moved to Los Angeles while monitoring and traveling often to the New York Office, now managed by Ms. Teresa A. Gruber. I am now a member of the California State and Federal Bars and opened satellite offices in Phoenix, Arizona and San Francisco, California since 2003.

I am also a member of every leading industry and trade association in the transportation and insurance, including TIDA (Trucking Industry Defense Association), ATA (American Trucking Association), TLA (Transportation Lawyers Association), ABA-TIPS (Trucking Insurance Practice Session) and am the web chair on the trucking committee of DRI (Defense Research Institute). I am also a member of the California Trucking Association, the New York Motor Carriers Association, Associations of Southern California Defense Counsel, Association of Northern California Defense Counsel, Los Angeles Bar Association, San Francisco Bar Association, New York State Claims Association, the New York County Lawyers Association, The Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the Boston Bar Association. I have been featured as a presenter and speaker at the annual TIDA convention and continue to publish a newsletter and speak at associations related to the transportation and insurance industry.

I currently live in Los Angeles with our office headquartered in West Hollywood. I enjoy traveling, socializing, skiing, golf, fishing, basketball, tennis, movie reruns, the final four (go Terps!) and winning lawsuits.