BEAUMONT – National law firm Brent Coon & Associates has been named as a Best Law Firm of 2016 by U.S. News & World Report.
The firm based in Beaumont, Texas, has been named Best Law Firm by the news organization before, and is a national law firm that takes on high profile cases through several satellite offices located across the country. Founded in 2001, Brent Coon & Associates specializes in complex individual and multi-party occupational, environmental, health and personal injury cases.
"We’re very well known nationally – probably much more than locally with the kind of litigation we handle,” founder Brent Coon told the Southeast Texas Record. “Hundreds of lawyers around the country send us their clients because of our special skill sets to handle very high-end and complex cases. That’s really our specialty. We deal with catastrophic stuff like oil spills, refinery explosions, plane crashes and things like that and as a consequence, it takes us out of town a lot. We do most of our work out of town and out of state.”
One of the more noteworthy recent cases involving Coon includes a suit he filed in Jefferson County on behalf of a worker injured during the Jan. 11 fire at the Marathon Petroleum facility in Texas City.
Coon was also named as a defendant in a $19.5 million suit brought by several major insurers who allege he, along with some other asbestos firms, failed to reimburse them for medical expenses from funds received through settlements with asbestos trusts.
The honor of being named as a Best Law Firm for Coon is a culmination of the hard work of the staff and attorneys at his firm, he said.
“It’s a reflection of the dedication of hard workers in southeastern Texas that have anchored our administrative offices here, as well as a lot of good work from the various law staff and lawyers at our satellite offices around the country,”
In addition to being honored as Best Law Firm of 2016, Brent Coon & Associates also has placed in the top one percent of law firms as ranked by the Wall Street Journal and Texas Monthly magazine. For Coon, his firm stands out from other firms in the industry by the commitment they make to their clients, as well as the dedication they give to each case, he said.
As a public policy law firm, Brent Coon & Associates gives a portion of the settlements to projects that need assistance. For example, the firm provided $100,000 to a local humane society to create a walking path in the DuPont fatality case.
“I think the thing that we do the most is stay at the forefront of cutting edge litigation. When we’re lead counsel and an outspoken firm on topical issues that affect certain industries and we’re lead counsel or a major law firm in major litigation around the country, that in of itself is what draws attention,” Coon said. “We’re followed very closely by the legal industry, the media and special interest groups that do follow and monitor certain types of instances that occur with different sectors. That keeps our name percolating at the forefront.”