Smith Duggan Cornell & Gollub LLP

In February 2023, two premier law ­ firms, Smith Duggan Buell & Rufo LLP and Cornell & Gollub, formed Smith Duggan Cornell & Gollub LLP. The firm’s exceptional trial lawyers are skilled in multiple areas, including product liability, business, construction, travel law, insurance and bad faith, malpractice, including medical malpractice defense, museum and art, and employment disputes.

Smith Duggan Cornell & Gollub LLP, based in Boston and Lincoln, Massachusetts, provides unsurpassed business counsel and litigation experience to clients of all sizes, from Fortune 500 companies to individual entrepreneurs throughout the Northeast and nationally on behalf of various clients.

With 22 seasoned lawyers focused on providing responsive, individualized service, the ­firm possesses a unique blend of courtroom talent, legal depth, and an unwavering commitment to excellence and client satisfaction.

The ­ firm’s attorneys have handled hundreds of jury trials. Senior partners Christopher A. Duggan, Peter M. Durney, Barbara H. Buell, Rodney E. Gould, and Dana A. Zakarian have a passion for the courtroom and an enviable track record for success. We are not afraid of juries, we celebrate them. Clients retain us because of our love for the courtroom.

Four partners have served as board members, presidents or officers of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates, an invitation-only organization reserved for veteran trial lawyers with extraordinary ethical and professional standards.

As is widely known from verdicts to appellate decisions, the firm’s lawyers have a long history of handling challenging and cutting-edge legal issues across diverse industries.

For example, since starting his career in the products liability division of General Electric, Peter Durney has advised corporate clients and defended product-related cases nationwide for over 35 years. His name is associated with dozens of verdicts and written decisions.

He and Patricia Hartnett were recently involved in helping FCA US LLC successfully defend a high-exposure, class action lawsuit valued by plaintiffs to be in excess of $122 million brought on behalf of 93,000 Massachusetts Dodge, Jeep, and Chrysler owners when a federal court jury in Boston returned a defense verdict in November 2023. In the aftermath of that verdict, the influential legal publication, law360, rated them among the nation’s best trial attorneys.

Throughout his career, Christopher Duggan has effectively tried cases and argued appeals for many product manufacturers, retailers, major airlines, and insurers. He is one of the most accomplished trial and appellate lawyers in the United States and regularly teaches trial advocacy for the ABA/TIPS trial advocacy school in Reno. An accomplished appellate lawyer, he has more than 35 published, precedent-setting cases, and regularly participates in amicus briefs in the United States Supreme Court on important constitutional questions.

Recently, in a groundbreaking case before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, he was the first lawyer to successfully challenge the “Reptile Strategy,” an approach advocated by plaintiffs’ attorneys nationally, in which closing arguments are designed to scare jurors and denigrate corporate defendants to generate exorbitant verdicts. In May 2024, he secured summary judgment in a seven-figure products liability fire case in federal court, convincing the judge that the plaintiff’s expert did not meet Daubert standards.

Rodney Gould is an international authority on travel and tourism law; his multi-jurisdictional trial and appellate practice spans the United States. He is also the co-author of the 1567-page text, Litigating International Torts in U.S. Courts (Thomson Reuters), which has been updated continually since 2010.

Over many years, Dana Zakarian has attracted national media attention in antitrust, trade secret, and unfair business practice cases. He has obtained considerable jury awards, double damages, and attorneys’ fees under the Massachusetts unfair and deceptive trade practices statute and is an active, thoughtful, and resourceful advocate for his clients.

Barbara Hayes Buell and Gerard A. Butler, Jr. lead a talented team of attorneys, paralegals, and support staff with decades of experience in various areas within the healthcare field. Our team of attorneys has handled hundreds of jury trials and alternative dispute resolution proceedings with a great rate of success.

Matthew Walko briefed and argued the successful appeal that helped convince the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to apply the federal expert witness admissibility Daubert standard to civil cases. He is an authority on insurance law and has been continually recognized as such by his peers.

By any measure, Smith Duggan Cornell & Gollub LLP is a leading, go-to, full-service law firm within the highly competitive Boston market, in New England and, for certain clients, nationally, specializing in litigation, health care, travel, corporate, trusts, estates, family law, insurance coverage, as well as commercial real estate, a practice group led by Paul Alan Rufo and Andrew P. Stempler, both of whom are well known in that select community.

With an imposing roster of skilled, creative, and cost-conscious attorneys, the lawyers at Smith Duggan Cornell & Gollub LLP have a proven track record of achieving favorable resolutions in and out of court, often saving clients the time and expense of protracted disputes.

This principled approach has generated longstanding client relationships based on mutual trust and transparency.