Gabriel A. Hawkins

Gabriel joined CohenMalad, LLP in 2007 after graduating with honors from Indiana University Maurer School of Law and following a judicial clerkship with the Indiana Court of Appeals. Gabriel focuses his practice in the areas of complex litigation, personal injury, business litigation, appellate litigation and legal malpractice.

In addition to overseeing a robust trial docket, Gabriel has a wealth of experience in appellate advocacy as a result of his clerkship and has served as lead counsel in several of the featured cases listed below. Apart from serving as lead trial counsel in cases in Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida, Texas, and Oregon, Gabriel has served as lead counsel on numerous cases before the Indiana Court of Appeals, the Indiana Supreme Court, and the Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits. Gabriel also has a robust federal trial practice and prosecuted cases before federal courts in Indiana, Florida, Oregon, Texas, and Illinois.

Gabriel specializes in complex, high-value litigation and served in key roles on several notable and highly-publicized cases including: In re 2005 U.S. Grand Prix, the Weinberger medical malpractice litigation, the Gandhi medical malpractice litigation, and ViaStar Energy, LLC v. Motorola, Inc.

Gabriel is particularly proud of his work in Bixby, et al. v. KBR, Inc., a complex toxic tort case in which American and British soldiers were exposed to a deadly carcinogen. The jury returned a verdict of $85,200,000 in favor of these soldiers.

Finally, while legal malpractice cases constitute a comparatively small fraction of the client recoveries generated by him, Gabriel does not shy from representing victims of egregious acts of legal malpractice. Gabriel regularly holds doctors, accountants, architects, CEOs, insurance companies, and other professionals to a standard of professional and ethical competence. He strongly believes that it is in the interest of society, as well as the legal profession, that lawyers are held to the same standard. To this end, Gabriel was instrumental in sustaining a $17, million legal malpractice verdict in Dennerline v. ICIT, which constitutes the largest legal malpractice verdict ever obtained in Indiana.