Mukesh Advani

Mukesh is Special Counsel to our firm, where he specializes in appellate work, complex general civil litigation matters with special focus on insurance coverage and bad faith cases on behalf of policyholders, business, commercial, employment, real estate, and personal injury litigation.

Before becoming Special Counsel to Guy Kornblum & Associates, Mukesh was engaged in private practice. He was previously affiliated with, among other firms, The Schinner Law Group with offices in San Francisco and Silicon Valley and a San Francisco based law firm of Kelly, Herlihy, Advani and Klein with offices in Northern and Southern California, a firm Mukesh co-founded in 1998.

In 1991, Mukesh received an A.V. rating (very high (legal ability) to preeminent) by Martindale-Hubbell, after he had been in practice for only five years. Mukesh is also included in the Martindale-Hubbell's 2005 Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers.

In his 25-year practice, Mukesh has represented major institutional and individual clients in a variety of civil litigation matters. Mukesh has been lead counsel in several dozen appellate matters, many of which are published. His most notable Supreme Court decisions include Kraus v. Trinity Management (2000) 23 Cal.4th 116, in which he was the lead counsel for defendants in the California Supreme Court in a major Unfair Competition Law case. Mukesh was also counsel for Dr. Allen Hassan in one of his other landmark California Supreme Court cases, Hassan v. Mercy Hospital (2003) 31 Cal.4th 709.

In addition to litigation practice, Mukesh has also worked for clients on general corporate matters, including entity formations, private financings, governance of corporations and limited liability companies, incentive compensation and stock option issuance, founders' matters, employment issues and commercial contracts.

Mukesh has published articles and taught continuing legal education classes on appellate practice and law practice management issues. He is the founder and past-president of the original South Asian Bar Association ("SABA") in San Francisco which was the inspiration for formation of dozens of SABA chapters across North America with thousands of members. Mukesh has served as a member of the California Committee of Bar Examiners, the Ethnic Minority Relations Committee of the State Bar of California and the executive committee of the International Law Section of the State Bar of California. Mukesh has received several awards including, Minority Bar Coalition's Award for Outstanding Service to Community. He is currently serving as Joint Coordinator of the Indian American Task Force on Terrorism. Mukesh started award winning free legal clinics at the India Community Center in Milpitas, California. Mukesh has also served as co-chair of the TiE Silicon Valley sponsorship committee which raised more than a million dollars for its annual convention.