Law Practice
Apr. 3, 2012
Insurance expert returns to Haight Brown as a partner
Mary Beth Sipos is proving Thomas Wolfe wrong: you can go home again, and not because you've failed.
Daily Journal Staff Writer
Mary Beth Sipos is proving Thomas Wolfe wrong: you can go home again, and not because you've failed.
Twenty-one years after leaving Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP, she is returning. She left Haight as an associate. Since then, she has worked for other law firms and in-house at Liberty Mutual Agency Corp. She said that after 12 years in-house as the company's senior claims counsel, a desire to resume active litigation, among other factors, drove her decision.
"I was approached by a high-school friend who offered me another claims counsel position," Sipos said. "It spurred me to analyze where I have been and where I want to go, and I realized that what I really miss is private practice. I miss litigating and being able to follow through all the way."
Sipos starts work at Haight today as a partner in the firm's risk management and insurance law practice group, and will split her time between the firm's offices in San Diego and Orange County. But she won't be far away from Liberty Mutual. She said she will continue to do work for the insurance company, a longtime client of Haight's.
S. Christian Stouder, firm-wide managing partner of Haight, said Sipos' in-house experience will be a welcomed addition to the firm.
"She brings to us client-side experience," he said. "That helps provide us with valuable perspective."
Sipos graduated from Boston University School of Law in 1986 and was a summer associate at Haight and an associate of the firm from 1985 to 1991.
"It has always been a wonderful place for learning the nuts and bolds of being an attorney," she said. "I tried my first trial and my first jury trial at Haight."
But unlike Wolfe's protagonist, George Webber, who fretted about returning to "old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time," Sipos said she is excited about going home. Her experiences, especially in-house, prepared her for the challenge, she said.
"I think that this is, both personally and professionally, going to be a wonderful move for me," Sipos said. href="mailto:
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