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Christopher Beeman
Christopher J. Beeman
Christopher J. Beeman is a nationally renowned trial lawyer who leads the firm's Personal Injury and Business Litigation Groups. He belongs to and is active in the following prestigious trial lawyers' organizations:
• American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA)
• International Academy of Trial Lawyers
• American College of Trial Lawyers
• International Society of Barristers
These four invitation-only groups recognize lawyers from both sides of the bar who have successfully tried numerous cases to juries and who exemplify professionalism and civility. Chris is a past president of the San Francisco chapter of ABOTA and past national president of the ABOTA Foundation. In 2022, he received the San Francisco Chapter's Don Bailey award for civility, professionalism, and integrity and in 2023, he received the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association's Distinguished Defense Trial Lawyer of the year award.
Mr. Beeman has been with Clapp, Moroney his entire legal career, and his current practice emphasizes the representation of individual and corporate defendants in cases ranging from catastrophic injury and wrongful death claims (including complex, multi party matters arising out of construction site accidents, and defective products) to business litigation and professional liability matters. Chris has tried to verdict cases brought on behalf of more than 100 plaintiffs.
Mr. Beeman has successfully represented clients before arbitrators, judges, and juries in Northern and Central California State and Federal Courts for more than forty years. He has conducted hundreds of arbitrations and mediations and is very familiar with and respected by the most widely‑utilized mediators throughout California. In the personal injury arena, Chris has expertise in handling sports and recreational activity lawsuits, as well as the defense of traumatic brain injury cases. He has additional experience and skill in the handling of severe orthopedic, internal injury and amputation claims.
A regularly featured speaker to groups of clients and attorneys, Chris has recently given presentations on topics including Ethics, Jury Selection, Trial techniques, the Assumption of Risk Doctrine. He has also participated in numerous demonstrations as a AMaster in Trial@ for ABOTA across the nation.
Among his published opinions is Dilger v Moyles (1997) 54 Cal.App.4th 1452, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 591, a First District Appellate Court decision which was petitioned to the Supreme Court for review. A sports enthusiast himself, Chris was pleased to handle the Dilger case, which holds that golfers assume the risk of injury when they are on the golf course and have no legal duty to yell "FORE!" after striking an errant shot.
Chris received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, cum laude, in 1982, and his J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law in 1985, where he was named to the Dean's List and received an Emory law scholarship. He is admitted to practice in California and before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and United States District Courts for the Northern District of California.
Mr. Beeman also belongs to The Association of Defense Trial Attorneys, Association of Defense Counsel of Northern California, Defense Research Institute, and the Products Liability and Personal Injury sections of the Contra Costa and Alameda County Bar Associations. A former State Chair of Claims Litigation Management (CLM), he has been named one of Northern California's "Super Lawyers" every year since the list has been published and is listed in Martindale Hubbel's register of Preeminent Lawyers. In 2011, The Irish Voice named him a member of Irish Legal 100, a list of the leading national trial lawyers of Irish descent.
Chris can be contacted at Clapp, Moroney's East Bay/Central Valley Office or at [email protected]