Donald W. Brown, 56

Civil litigation, insurance coverage

Considered one of the best insurance policyholder lawyers in California, Brown keeps busy with a long list of clients that includes cable television company Adelphia Communications Corp., billionaire Philip F. Anschutz's investment vehicle Anschutz Co., ExxonMobil Corp., McDonald's Corp., Morgan Stanley, McKesson Corp. and Yahoo Inc. In May, he won an arbitration for biopharmaceutical client InterMune Inc., through which the company recovered from its directors and officers' liability insurer the legal costs of fighting its former CEO's still-pending federal criminal charges. Brown also convinced California's 2nd District Court of Appeal this year to hear a petition for a writ in a case that client Vulcan Materials Co. filed against one of its insurers stemming from liabilities it encountered in a Modesto groundwater pollution lawsuit.