Knox McLaughlin Gornall & Sennett, P.C.

Specialties

One of the largest law firms in the region, with more than 40 attorney’s.

History

Established in 1958.

The Knox firm began in 1958 as a partnership among William W. Knox, Gerald J. Weber, Conrad A. Pearson and John M. McLaughlin in Erie. In 1964, Gerald J. Weber was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of PA, the first of three members of the firm to become federal judges. William W. Knox joined him in 1970. Sean J. McLaughlin was appointed in 1994, stepping down in 2013 to become General Counsel of the Erie Insurance Group. William C. Sennett was named Attorney General of PA in 1967, and Mortimer E. Graham, who had been General Counsel of the Hammermill Paper Company, joined the firm. Mr. Sennett returned in 1970 and the firm became a professional corporation in 1971, one of the first in the state. Jackson D. Magenau and M. Fletcher Gornall merged their four-​member practice into the firm in 1976. In 2007, the firm opened an office in Jamestown, NY. In 2009, James S. Bryan merged his third-​generation practice, based in based in North East, into the firm.