The Right Lawyer. Every Time. This is the calling card of Davenport, Evans, Hurwitz & Smith, LLP, a firm promise of ensuring that no matter how a client comes to us, the right attorney is put on the team to provide excellent legal counsel. This is why so many of our clients know more than one attorney in the firm and benefit from a variety of our practice areas for business, individual and litigation services.
This tradition of service dates back to Holton Davenport, a distinguished Sioux Falls lawyer, and Ellsworth E. Evans, an experienced litigator and assistant attorney general. Forming a partnership in 1939, they were joined in 1941 by Louis R. Hurwitz and by Deming Smith in 1946. For decades, the firm has remained the first or second largest law firm in South Dakota.
Maintaining our home in Sioux Falls, we have assembled a quality legal team from the ranks of law review editors, moot court participants, judicial clerks and former in-house counsel. Approximately half of our attorneys are engaged in litigation, with the other half attending to clients' business, commercial, estate planning and real estate interests.
Prominent in the South Dakota trial bar, the litigation team has recovered substantial awards for plaintiffs, but the greatest part of their practice is the defense of cases for corporations and insurance companies. A number of their cases have involved federal and state constitutional issues. Davenport Evans is extensively involved in insurance coverage and general insurance matters. We serve as general counsel for the South Dakota Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Association and the South Dakota Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association.
The firm's trial lawyers include specialists in commercial and complex litigation, professional liability, medical malpractice, insurance, employment, products liability, personal injury, civil rights, school law, workers' compensation and administrative law. They are consistently listed by their peers in various practice areas in Chambers USA, Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers and most recently Best Lawyers "Lawyer of the Year."
Strong client advocacy has resulted in successful representation in the acquisition, sale or merger of numerous banks, bank holding companies, insurance companies, cable television companies and corporations. We have represented corporations, hospitals and public entities in connection with bond issues. The firm's estate planning and trust and estate administration lawyers have developed extensive plans for the transfer of family wealth, served beneficiaries and trustees with complicated trust administration and trust reformation problems, and provided probate and other post-mortem tax planning services.
Among the business lawyers are specialists in corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, banking and financial services, real estate, taxation, utilities, telecommunications, health law, estate planning and probate administration, trusts, private trust companies, bankruptcy and creditors' rights, trademark and copyright protection, employee benefits, and labor and employment law.
Davenport Evans represents many nationally known companies that are leaders of their industries. Regional and local clients come from across the state of South Dakota, southwest Minnesota, and northwest Iowa. Banking and credit card industry clients range across the Upper Midwest from Wisconsin to Montana. While most clients represented by the firm are medium to large corporations, the firm also tends to the legal needs of many smaller businesses and individuals.
Our attorneys are constantly updating their skills through continuing legal education seminars, often serving as panelists or lecturers. They hold membership in the American Bar Association, the State Bar of South Dakota, and the local bar association. Several partners have served as presidents of the State Bar. Other individual memberships include the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, American College of Trial Lawyers, International Society of Barristers, American Board of Trial Advocates, American College of Real Estate Lawyers, American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, Estate Planning Council, American Academy of Health Care Attorneys, and the Defense Research Institute.
Davenport Evans is deeply dedicated to the quality of life in our community. Annually, we formally sponsor several charitable and community organizations as a firm, from the arts to sports, social causes and education. Our attorneys also give their personal time and donate to local organizations. In addition, our firm awards college scholarships to several area high school graduates each year.
Our firm remains true to clients when times are good and when they face challenges — alluding to our Midwestern values and work ethic that make us a top legal choice nationwide.