Litigator, magician and Marine Randy Sinnott ’82 saves the Magic Castle
When Randy Sinnott ’82 was in seventh grade visiting his school library just outside St. Louis, Mo., he did what any 12-year-old might do: He got distracted and stumbled upon a book about Harry Houdini.
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| Randy Sinnott '82 |
“I had no idea who he was, but I opened it up and saw there were cool pictures of him in handcuffs and being thrown off a bridge, and that got me interested in magic,” Sinnott says.
The distraction turned into a life-long pursuit for the self-taught magician, who would visit the hardware store to buy padlocks and chains and perform escapes for neighbors. Today, he prefers close-up magic, his favorite tricks involving coins or cards, which he often carries with him in case an opportunity to perform presents itself.
“One thing I always observe is, people who are smart and know they’re smart will always think that they can’t be fooled by magic, so to fool those people has more of an impact,” Sinnott says.
Last year, Sinnott, founding partner of Sinnott, Puebla, Campagne and Curet, was elected treasurer of the board of directors for the Academy of Magical Arts, housed at the landmark Magic Castle in Hollywood. During a recent visit to the members-only castle, Sinnott was thanked repeatedly for “saving the castle” after a fire broke out in the century-old Victorian mansion last Halloween.
“I became treasurer in May and all of our insurance came up for renewal in early October. We increased the amount of business interruption insurance that we had and that policy started 19 days before the fire,” Sinnott says. “Without that, we’d probably be out of business.”
Sinnott is well-versed in insurance, having dedicated his practice to insurance coverage litigation.
“Every case is different, and it’s very mentally stimulating to work on these kinds of cases,” says Sinnott, who has represented many of the world’s largest insurers in asbestos, environmental and construction matters. “There’s always something unique about a case that turns it into a lawsuit; they’re never cookie cutter.”
Among those cases is Titan Corporation v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Company, in which the California Court of Appeal interpreted, for the first time and in the way urged by Sinnott’s client, a number of provisions in a corporate general liability policy.
The law is Sinnott’s second career; the United States Marine Corps is his first. After graduating from the University of Michigan and Officer Candidates School, he was on active duty in 1976-79. He remained on active reserve through law school and his career until he returned to active duty in January 2003.
Colonel Sinnott soon deployed to Iraq for seven months, serving as the USMC liaison to the American military command. He then held the same role in Afghanistan for eight months, when he was wounded by shrapnel in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack. He recuperated and returned home to his two daughters and son on schedule seven weeks later. He retired in 2006, having received the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star with Valor and Purple Heart.
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