Gibbons commercial litigation co-chair named managing director

Gibbons commercial and criminal litigation group co-chair Peter Toricollo has been named firm managing director, effective Feb. 1.

Longtime chairman and managing director Patrick Dunican will assume the role of executive chairperson after two decades in the dual role.

In his new position, Torcicollo will be the firm’s chief executive officer for up to two four-year terms, responsible for overseeing professional and administrative operations, implementing the directives of the executive committee and leading the firm’s attorneys and employees.

Patrick C. Dunican

He will also spearhead the creation and implementation of a strategic business plan and mission statement, and will work closely with heads of Gibbons‘ administrative departments and its general counsel on all matters including finance, banking, budgeting, personnel, compensation, technology, marketing, the Rules of Professional Conduct, firm policies and protocols and general daily operations. In addition, Torcicollo will be involved in the identification of new business and stewardship of existing business.

Torcicollo joined the firm nearly 30 years ago as an associate.

“It is my firmly held belief that all of us owe it to those lawyers coming up behind us to do everything in our power to guarantee that they all have this firm as a place to call home for the next 30 years, and that the institution is still here another 100 years from now,” he said.

After joining the firm in 1993, Torcicollo left for one year to serve as clerk to U.S. District Judge Alfred Lechner Jr. He became director at the firm in 2000 and became a member of the executive committee 10 years later when he was named chair of what was then the firm’s business and commercial litigation group. When that group merged with the criminal defense practice in 2018, he became co-chair of the commercial and criminal litigation group, the firm’s largest practice group.

Torcicollo has held numerous other managerial and leadership positions and he developed, launched, built and directed the firm’s construction litigation practice, which has been ranked by Construction Executive as a nationwide “Top 50 Construction Law Firm” all three years the list has been published.

For over 15 years, Torcicollo was the firm’s hiring partner, and he continues to serve on the Partnership Screening Committee.

Also for more than 15 years, he served as director of professional development, retention and associate recruitment, playing a role in the elimination of the firm’s summer associate program in favor of aggressive hiring of lawyers who completed judicial clerkships. Well over half the firm’s more than 200 attorneys today are former judicial clerks or interns, according to an Oct. 25 announcement.

As managing director, Torcicollo will work closely with Dunican, who will focus on many of the more outward-facing platforms for which the two firm leaders will be responsible. Together, they will collaborate to ensure that the firm’s internal and external plans and programs complement each other. Torcicollo will shadow Dunican for the next three months to learn the scope of his role.

“Pete is everything a Managing Director should be – smart, strategic, open-minded, ethical, relatable, and, most importantly, completely dedicated to the great Gibbons law firm, its clients, its employees, and its future,” Dunican said in a statement. “Having worked with him in various capacities for decades already, I am excited about what we will be able to accomplish together.”