Preg O'Donnell & Gillett is proud to announce that founding members Mark F. O'Donnell and Eric P. Gillett have been named to the Washington Super Lawyers list as top attorneys for 2011. No more than 5 percent of the lawyers in the state are selected by Super Lawyers.
Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters business, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The annual selections are made using a rigorous multi-phased process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates, and peer reviews by practice area.
The Super Lawyers lists are published nationwide in Super Lawyers magazines and in leading city and regional magazines across the country. Super Lawyers magazines also feature editorial profiles of attorneys who embody excellence in the practice of law. For more information about Super Lawyers, go to superlawyers.com.
The first Super Lawyers list was published in 1991 and by 2009 the rating service had expanded nationwide. In February 2010 Super Lawyers was acquired by Thomson Reuters the world's leading source of intelligent information for business and professionals.
Mark and Eric have also earned an AV Rating from Martindale-Hubbell, which provides independent peer review based ratings. The AV Rating is the highest possible Martindale-Hubbell rating. It signifies that the attorney has reached the highest level of professional skill and excellence along with the highest level of professionalism and ethics.
Mark and Eric join founding member Ted Preg as Super Lawyers. Together they started the firm in 1996 with 8 lawyers and have guided the firm into a regional civil defense trial firm with 28 lawyers with offices in Seattle, Portland and Anchorage. Firm members Lori O'Tool, Bennett Hansen, and Emma Gillespie, as well as Associate Shannon McMinimee, have previously been recognized as Rising Stars by Super Lawyers.
Preg O'Donnell & Gillett's lawyers recently celebrated their third defense verdict of the year and have successfully tried 12 cases in the last two years.
Please visit the firm's website at www.pregodonnell.com for more information on the firm's practice and talented team of lawyers.

Lori K. O'Tool, partner at Preg O'Donnell & Gillett, PLLC, obtained a defense verdict following a four week wrongful death trial in Spokane County, Washington before Judge Kathleen O'Connor. Lori represented the general contractor, a 100 year old mining and construction company.
The claims arose out of the death of a subcontractor employee during a road improvement project outside of Spokane. The 19 year old decedent and his supervisor were installing sign posts using a utility truck owned by their employer, who was a subcontractor on the project. As the workers were installing the last sign post of the day along the side of the roadway, the truck began to roll down hill. The workers ran after the truck and the decedent caught up to the truck, jumped in the cab, but was unable to bring the truck to a stop. The truck flipped while going around a curve at high speed, went through a guard rail, slid down an embankment and caught fire.

Andrew Tingkang, a Seattle University Law student in his second year as a law clerk at Preg O'Donnell & Gillett, is soon to be a published author. These Aren’t the Asteroids You Are Looking For: Classifying Asteroids as Chattels, Not Land will appear in an upcoming edition of the Seattle University Law Review. Mr. Tingkang's cutting edge Comment discusses the benefits of ownership of asteroids by private parties, the current state of outer space law, and argues for the proposition that asteroids be treated as chattels, rather than as real property.