John Hook

1930 - 2016

John Bertrand Hook

September 30, 1930-February 16, 2016

John Bertrand Hook passed away after an illness of five months. Born to Sidney Hook and Carrie Carroll in Brooklyn, New York, who predeceased him, as did his first wife, Shirley, John grew up in Los Angeles and later moved to San Francisco.
John was an active civil litigation attorney in San Francisco for close to 60 years, specializing in insurance law for first and third party coverage disputes, defense of bad faith actions and large property damage subrogation cases. He was the most senior partner at his firm, Long & Levit LLP, and active up to a few months of his death. He was the past chairman of the Federal Defense and Corporate Counsel, Continuing Education of the Bar Joint Advisory Committee, Continuing Education of the Bar Special Subcommittee on Programs and Assessment, Trial Practice Subcommittee, and the Continuing Education Committee of the Bar Association of San Francisco. He was a member of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association, the Consumer Attorneys of California, The Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the American Judicature Society and the Northern California Association of Defense Counsel.
He authored numerous articles on insurance industry publications relating to subrogation recoveries, allocation of multiple policy period losses under first party policies, and actual cash value/fair market values rules under California law and California State Bar publications relating to discovery and risk of loss in property insurance. Despite his many accomplishments, he was known to be unpretentious and without guile. All who knew John liked and respected him, and admired his integrity, ethical and personal sensitivity, and professional acumen. Relatives, friends, and colleagues will miss him dearly.
He was fond of playing tennis, spectator sports, his beautiful successive Jaguars, and memories of his Harvard days at college (B.A. 1952) and the law school (J.D. 1955), the reunions of each he attended regularly every five years since graduation.
He is survived by his loving wife and son, Gina and Steven Hook, half siblings Ben (a.k.a. Ernest B. Hook), Susan (Hook) Goulian, cousin Barbara (Hook) Zafran, cousin Susan Tulis and many nephews and nieces. John and Gina regularly enjoyed plays and the Ballet among many other cultural activities in the Bay Area, as well as traveling the world together. A celebration of his life will be at noon on Saturday March 12th at Fernwood Cemetery located at 310 Tennessee Valley Road, Mill Valley. To ensure adequate space, RSVP is requested by March 10th to Steve at TheHook@Verizon.Net.