Harlan B. Watkins
hwatkins@mpbf.com

Mr. Watkins was born in San Francisco, California. He handles all forms of civil litigation in state and federal courts, including professional liability, insurance coverage, insurance defense and bad-faith litigation, products liability and premises liability. Mr. Watkins’ practice also focuses upon the defense of judges before the California Commission on Judicial Performance.

Mr. Watkins is admitted to practice before all courts of the State of California, the Federal District Court of California for the Northern and Eastern Districts and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Published Appellate Decisions

• California Supreme Court:
  Musser v. Provencher (2002) 28 Cal.4th 274.

• Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals:
  Sutter v. Applied Systems, 393 F.3d 722, (2004)

Unublished Appellate Decisions

• California Court of Appeal:
  Guerrero v. University of San Francisco WL 2669262 (11/23/2004)
  
  
• Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals:
  Krause v. Krause, 9th Cir. No. 03-17151 (7/5/2005)

Representative Trials

• Novak v. Acceptance
  Professional liability defense action involving alleged legal negligence in the handling of a $500,000 insurance bad-faith action. Case tried by Michael Bradley and Harlan Watkins in San Francisco Superior Court, and resulted in a defense verdict on behalf of client.

• Sutter v. Applied Systems
  Plaintiff’s breach of contract action involving a dispute over defective software. The case was tried in Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and resulted in a recovery of approximately $400,000 for the client.

Publications

• Santa Clara Computer & High Technology Law Journal "Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: 'General Acceptance' Rejected" 1994, Vol. 10, Issue 1