Sen. Weinstein takes job in Seattle law firm

Mercer Island’s state senator, Brian Weinstein, announced last week that he joined the law firm of Bergman & Frockt as senior counsel. Weinstein just finished the fourth year of his first and only term in the state Senate. Weinstein will not seek re-election this fall, and current Island representative Fred Jarrett is running for the open seat.

At Bergman & Frockt, a Seattle-based firm dedicated to asbestos and consumer protection cases, Weinstein will continue litigating cases from across the nation. During his term on the Senate, he served as chair of the state Senate’s Consumer and Housing Committee, and he introduced several pieces of legislation to protect consumers from unfair insurance industry tactics, shoddy home construction, mortgage fraud and foreclosure rescue scams.

He also led the fight against the insurance industry last year, which tried to overturn the Fair Insurance Practices Act, a law Weinstein introduced prohibiting insurance companies from wrongfully rejecting legitimate insurance claims. Voters voiced their support for the new law by voting to keep the law on the books approving Referendum 67 last November.

Senator Weinstein, 53, resides in the South end with his wife, Gaylene, and three children. He pioneered asbestos litigation strategies in the late 1980s and 1990s by representing workers poisoned by asbestos in several states. He also won some of the largest jury verdicts in asbestos litigation, totaling several $100 million. The “National Law Journal” recognized Weinstein as one of a team of lawyers who won the nation’s largest jury verdict that year against New York Powerhouse. The case ended with a $91.3 million verdict for 45 plaintiffs as Weinstein and a team of lawyers represented hundreds of workers who were exposed to asbestos while working as insulation installers for Consolidated Edison and Long Island Lighting Co.