Partner Profile: Peter H. Cuttitta
Pete Cuttitta has practiced at Porter Simon since 1985 and was managing shareholder from 1998 until 2007. His professional career has been devoted to civil litigation, and he has successfully prosecuted and defended professional liability cases, public entity liability claims, construction defect actions, eminent domain cases and personal injury matters. Pete presently manages the firm's automobile and homeowners insurance defense practice for State Farm Insurance Company in the Tahoe region. He has also litigated cases for various public entities, including the Truckee Tahoe Airport District, the Truckee Donner Public Utility District, and Tahoe Forest Hospital District. Pete has received an AV rating from the nationally recognized legal rating firm, Martindale-Hubbell. This rating, the highest, is reserved for attorneys whose legal skills are judged to be "very high" to "pre-eminent," and whose ethical standards are "very high."
Pete is a member of the California and Nevada bar associations and is also a member of the Defense Research Institute, the Association of Defense Counsel of Nevada, Nevada Trial Lawyer's Association and various local bar associations. Pete often serves as arbitrator and Judge Pro Tem in the local courts, which includes Placer, Nevada and El Dorado counties, and is frequently retained to act as a mediator and an arbitrator in binding arbitration proceedings.
An integral part of the Truckee community, Pete has served as president of the Truckee Downtown Merchants Association. He is the firm's resident cowboy and has a strong interest in horseback riding and team roping. Pete also enjoys cross-country skiing, fishing, and camping. Pete's wife, Jeanne, was formerly a legal secretary in Truckee.
Pete graduated in 1974 from the University of California at Berkeley, with a B.A. in History. He received his law degree in 1977 from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, in Sacramento, California. Pete is admitted to practice in the state courts of California and Nevada and is also admitted to practice in the Federal District Courts of the Northern, Central and Eastern Districts of California, as well as the District of Nevada, and is admitted to the bars of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.