Personal-injury attorneys (from left to right) Brad N. Pollock, Gerald Bekkerman, Sean P. Murray and Marc A. Taxman joined to form a new firm earlier this month. 
Personal-injury attorneys (from left to right) Brad N. Pollock, Gerald Bekkerman, Sean P. Murray and Marc A. Taxman joined to form a new firm earlier this month.  — Handout from Taxman, Pollock, Murray & Bekkerman LLC

Four former colleagues have reunited under a new banner after years in their own practices.

Marc A. Taxman and Sean P. Murray — two attorneys from Anesi, Ozmon, Rodin, Novak & Kohen Ltd. — and Bradley N. Pollock from what is now Walsh, Knippen & Cetina Chtd. in Wheaton have joined forces with Gerald J. Bekkerman, formerly of Bekkerman Law Offices LLC.

The four new partners officially opened as Taxman, Pollock, Murray & Bekkerman LLC on Jan 5.

The firm’s office are at 225 N. Wacker Drive.

Each attorney has secured millions of dollars for clients who suffered catastrophic injuries or wrongful deaths. All four attorneys were included with their previous firms among the highest-grossing practices in the 2016 Jury Verdict Reporter Settlements Report, published in the October issue of Chicago Lawyer.

Murray — who had been with Anesi Ozmon for 15 years — said the new firm will continue to practice in the personal-injury field.

Bekkerman met Taxman and Murray while he was a law clerk at Anesi Ozmon years ago. And before he joined Anesi Ozmon, Murray worked with Pollock at Robert N. Wadington & Associates.

Taxman said the four attorneys decided to come together because they’ve supported and collaborated with one another through the years as they charted different paths.

“It starts at a friendship, and we think we’re pretty individually successful lawyers,” said Taxman, who spent 29 years with Anesi Ozmon. “All of us have accomplished good things for our clients that we’re super proud of, so we thought this synergy would make us that much better to be able to serve our clients’ interests.”

Bekkerman, 35, had been growing his own law practice for six years. He said the career move seemed right because he wanted to get back into trial work and his business had grown “too big for his own interests.”

“I was getting too caught up in books and management and health-care decisions,” he said. “I really want to give mentorship to my associates who are younger than me — and I’m young. And I thought, ‘What better place to do that than with the guys that mentored me, trained me and are some of the most knowledgeable and most well-respected lawyers in our field?’ So I thought it was a great opportunity from my end.”

Pollock said deciding to join forces with new law partners after 17 years with his old firm went deeper than the “who” and “what” for him.

“With this group, that ‘why we do it’ is really what came to the heart of the issue for me — and that’s caring about our clients, wanting to see our clients do the best and putting our clients’ interests above ours,” Pollock said. “It’s for those reasons why I think it’s a special group and a great opportunity for me.”

Timing was important as well, Taxman said.

“All of us saw a need from each other at a very specific time,” he said. “… We had a chance to do this now because the opportunity presented itself, or we would have gone in at least three, and possibly four, other directions.”

The partners — all of whom serve on the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association’s board of managers — said they look forward to guiding and developing younger attorneys who come to the firm.

Taxman said that developing a new generation of talent is something he hopes will set the new firm apart.

“There’s going to be a gap between the way we were all trained and the lawyers who are all up-and-coming if we don’t continue to teach that you have to care about your clients, if people aren’t taught that you have to speak at the bar associations, that you have to join the bar associations, you have to be active politically,” he said.

All of those things are the vision we have, and we wanted to see the things that were instilled in us passed onto any member that comes into this firm. And as those people come up and take over this firm and pick other people, that’s going to keep this practice going in a good way.”