Andrew J. Kinstler  
phone (206) 689-2107
akinstler@helsell.com

AREAS OF PRACTICE
• Commercial Disputes and Class Actions
• Employment and Labor
• Land Use and Environmental Law
• Personal Injury Defense
• Products Liability and Other Personal Injury
• Trials and Appeals

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Mr. Kinstler has a civil trial practice with an emphasis on employment law and personal injury defense. He has extensive experience advising both employers and employees on issues arising under federal and state laws. Mr. Kinstler has successfully tried cases in front of juries in courts throughout the Pacific Northwest, and has represented clients in appeals heard by the Washington Court of Appeals, the Washington Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. Kinstler currently leads the team that is pursuing a ground-breaking race discrimination case arising out of the alleged use of minority contractors to obtain lucrative federally subsidized contracts.

In Michigan he successfully represented a Spokane-area business sued by a multi-national corporation for alleged breach of contract. That case settled after a week of trial in the Western District of Michigan.

In King County he served as lead counsel for hundreds of businesses affected by a power outage caused by the negligence of City of Seattle workers, who failed to mark the location of an underground vault.

He has tried more than 50 cases to verdict in the courts of King, Snohomish and Pierce counties.

REPORTED DECISIONS
Bulman v. Safeway, Inc., 144 Wn. 2d 335 (2001)
Seattle First Nat. Bank v. Mitchell, 87 Wn. App. 448 (1997)
Mutual of Enumclaw Ins. Co. v. Jerome,
122 Wn.2d 157 (1993)
Employco Personnel Services, Inc. v. City of Seattle (1991)
Hampson v. Ramer, 47 Wn. App. 806 (1987)

EDUCATION
Mr. Kinstler is a 1979 graduate of the State University of New York at Albany, summa cum laude, and a 1982 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, cum laude.

BAR MEMBERSHIPS
Mr. Kinstler has been a member of the Washington State Bar since 1982. He is also admitted to practice in the Western and Eastern Districts of Washington, the Western District of Michigan and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Kinstler is a member of the American Bar Association, the Washington Bar Association, the Seattle-King County Bar Association and the Washington Defense Trial Lawyers.

OTHER
Mr. Kinstler served as Helsell Fetterman’s managing partner from 1998 to 2001.

BACK TO TOP