Belluck, Pietrykowski to Chair the 2010 National Asbestos Conference, HB Announces

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- HB Litigation Conferences CEO Tom Hagy has announced attorneys Joseph Belluck of New York and Michael Pietrykowski of San Francisco will co-chair The Thirteenth Annual National Asbestos Litigation Conference in September 2010.

"We are delighted these respected and engaged attorneys have accepted our invitation to lead what has become one of the seminal annual events in the ever-evolving asbestos litigation," said Hagy.  

Belluck, a founding partner of Belluck & Fox, LLP (www.BelluckFox.com), is a nationally recognized attorney whose practice focuses on asbestos, consumer, environmental, and product injury litigation, and has won a number of major cases - including a recent asbestos case that settled for over $12 million. In 2008, Belluck was appointed by the Governor of New York to serve on the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct and named a New York SuperLawyer.  In 2007, he co-chaired what was then called Mealey's National Asbestos Litigation Conference (now an HB event). While serving as counsel to the New York State Attorney General,. Belluck was instrumental in settling the state's lawsuit with the tobacco industry for $25 billion.

Pietrykowski, a partner at Gordon & Rees LLP (www.GordonRees.com), has built an active litigation practice throughout California, focusing on toxic tort and environmental matters.  He chairs the firm's Environmental and Toxic Tort Practice Group.  Pietrykowski has experience with all major environmental statutes, including the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, and California's Proposition 65.  He has also handled a variety of toxic tort cases, including those involving chemicals, asbestos, and mold exposures. He has represented defendants in personal injury, products liability, and professional liability cases.

Both attorneys chaired the Twelfth Annual National Asbestos Litigation Conference in 2009, along with Joseph J. O'Hara Jr., vice president and associate general counsel of Owens-Illinois Inc.

The National Asbestos Litigation Conference, first held in 1998, is the companion conference to HB's Emerging Trends in Asbestos Litigation Conference, which is coming up on March 4-5, 2010, in Marina del Rey, Calif.  That program is being chaired by two other respected attorneys, Steven Kazan of Kazan, McClain, Lyons, Greenwood & Harley PLC (www.KazanLaw.com) of Oakland, Calif., and Lawrence Cetrulo of Cetrulo & Capone LLP (www.CetCap.com) of Boston.  Kazan was co-chair of the first National Asbestos event in 1998.  Cetrulo has been a frequent speaker at the HB programs.

HB is a nationally certified provider of legal education, focusing on complex litigation and insurance topics.  It was founded by Hagy, former publisher of Mealey Publications and Vice President of LexisNexis, and Sharon Boothe, the founding director of Mealey's Conferences from 1992 through 2008.  For more information, visit  www.LitigationConferences.com, write to  [email protected], or call (484) 324-2755.

SOURCE HB Litigation Conferences