Attorneys Rick Braun, Michael J. Cook, and Nicole E. Wilinski have been elected partners in law firm of Southfield-based Collins Einhorn Farrell PC.
Braun is a partner in the firm’s nationally recognized mass-tort defense group. He focuses his practice on the defense of asbestos claims, and has defended premises owners, non-manufacturing suppliers, and manufacturers of industrial equipment, friction products, and electrical components. He is a member of the National Coordinating Counsel team for a client in asbestos litigation, which includes the management of thousands of cases within 25 states across the country.
Braun, of Rochester Hills, serves as vice-chair of the energy, sustainability, and environmental law committee for the Oakland County Bar Association. He is a member of the Environmental Law Institute, and serves on the Toxic Tort and Environmental Law Committee, Asbestos Subcommittee, and Climate Change Subcommittee for the Defense Research Institute.
Braun was also selected as a 2012 and 2013 Top Lawyer in DBusiness for his work in product liability.
Cook is a partner in the firm’s appellate group. His practice focuses on appellate litigation, which includes trial-level brief writing, especially at the summary-judgment stage. He has represented clients on a wide variety of civil-litigation matters, including professional liability (particularly medical and legal malpractice cases), contractual indemnity, business torts, the Uniform Commercial Code, and general liability.
Cook is a member of the State Bar of Michigan’s Appellate Practice Section, the Michigan Defense Trial Counsel, the Association of Defense Trial Counsel, and the Oakland County Bar Association.
Cook, of Auburn Hills, was also served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Robert P. Young, Jr. on the Michigan Supreme Court from 2007 to 2009.
Wilinski is a partner in the firm’s insurance coverage group. She has extensive experience representing insurance carriers in complex coverage litigation in both state and federal courts throughout Michigan and the Midwest, including in the areas of environmental and construction law. As part of her practice, Wilinski regularly provides coverage opinions and proposed coverage position letters on behalf of insurers arising out of claims for property damage, construction defects, fraud and/or misrepresentations, personal and advertising injury, and bodily injury claims.
Wilinski, of Rochester Hills, is past vice chair of the American Bar Association’s TIPS Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee; Council Member of the State Bar of Michigan’s Insurance and Indemnity Law Section; member and past president of the Women’s Bar Association – Oakland Region; member and past director at Large of the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan; member of the Oakland County Bar Association and member of the Defense Research Institute.
Nicole has been listed as a 2012 and 2014 Top Lawyer in DBusiness for her work in insurance litigation.
