Individual Representation & Litigation

Adkins, Kelston & Zavez, P.C., represents individuals and other clients in a wide range of legal and litigation matters.

Disputes
Adkins, Kelston & Zavez, P.C., represents clients in a wide-range of legal disputes, including:

  • copyright infringement
  • insurance companies involving disputes over coverage, dividends or other issues
  • between business partners
  • students accused of wrongdoing by educational institutions
  • tenants and landlords
  • property owners and abutters in property line or environmental disputes
  • beneficiaries
  • identity theft
  • non-profits or individuals seeking public records from local, state or federal government

Copyright Protection
We represent photographers, artists and others seeking to protect their copyrighted work from infringement on the Internet and elsewhere.

Challenging Insurance Company Demutualizations, Mutual Conversions, Reorganizations, Mergers
AKZ has developed recognized expertise in this multi-billion dollar issue by leading a national effort to challenge dozens of unfair mutual insurance company demutualizations (i.e., conversions from policyholder-owned mutual companies into stock companies) through class action and derivative litigation, administrative agency challenges, and public policy work, including by bringing media exposure to the issue. AKZ has also brought legal challenges to several problematic stock insurance company mergers on antitrust and other grounds, including that of Paul Revere and Provident, and of UNUM/Provident.

Civil Rights and Human Rights
We work to defend and protect people’s civil and human rights:

  • AKZ successfully litigated cases on behalf of people whose civil rights were violated, including by winning the release of several people wrongly convicted of crimes that AKZ proved they did not commit, and by obtaining money damages in excess of $950,000 for one client's wrongful incarceration.
  • AKZ lawyers helped initiate a landmark lawsuit brought in 1997 by Burmese villagers against Unocal, a U.S.-based oil company.  In 2005, after much litigation by other counsel, Unocal agreed to settle the claims in Doe v. Unocal and to compensate the villagers who sued the company for complicity with the Burmese junta in destruction of their villages, forced labor and murder.  Unocal, Total and the government were engaged in a joint venture to build anatural gas pipeline from Burma to Thailand.

Criminal Matters
AKZ attorney David Kelston successfully represented dozens of persons accused of crimes by state and federal authorities, including on appeal.

Identity Theft
We represent clients who have suffered identity theft in order to stop the theft and help resolve the numerous credit, debt and other issues that arise from such theft.

Intellectual Property
We represent clients in protecting their intellectual property, including copyrights.

Real Estate/Wills/Trusts
We represent clients in providing an array of legal services, such as drafting wills, trusts and performing real estate closings.

State and Federal Government Accountability
AKZ has successfully litigated cases seeking governmental disclosure of public records (under the federal Freedom of Information Act and similar state laws), including on behalf of non-profit organizations.  We have also successfully sued state and federal agencies for alleged violations of law on behalf of individuals and non-profit policy organizations.