“It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.”
– Hunter S. Thompson
Bram Feinstein-Hillsman
Abraham Hillsman has dedicated his professional life to representing people who have suffered severe injuries on the water. For two decades, Mr. Hillsman has represented Plaintiffs exclusively and established a reputation as an honest, dedicated and talented trial lawyer.
A graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz (B.A., 2001), and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law (J.D., 2005), Mr. Hillsman was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He joined McGuinn, Hillsman & Palefsky after sharpening his skills at two prior plaintiffs-side firms and now specializes in areas including maritime law, personal injury, and Federal Workers’ Compensation, including claims under the Jones Act, the Longshore Act, and the Defense Base Act. Mr. Hillsman is a member of the Maritime Law Association, the American Association for Justice, the California Association of Consumers, the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association, WILG, Alameda County Trial Lawyers Association, the United States Department of Labor’s West Coast Symposium Steering Committee and the Pacific Admiralty Seminar Steering Committee.
Mr. Hillsman is a recognized authority on maritime tort law. He has served as a continuing legal education (CLE) speaker for the San Francisco Bar Association, presented at the NWLAA Tri-Annual Conference in Portland Oregon, spoken at the United States Department of Labor’s West Coast Symposiums II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII in San Francisco, lectured at Loyola University’s Longshore Conference in New Orleans and chaired the Personal Injury Section of the Pacific Admiralty Seminar. He was selected as a Northern California Rising Star by Super Lawyers Magazine in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 and as a Super Lawyer every year from 2019 – 2025.
He has tried many difficult cases governed by the Law of the Sea, and throughout his career has been successful holding defendants accountable, earning his clients the recovery they deserve and finding a path through the complex maze that is admiralty law.
