Gunster, one of Florida’s oldest and largest full-service business law firms, today announced that Christina Sharkey has joined the firm as a shareholder on its nationally and globally ranked Discovery Strategy team as recognized by Chambers, strengthening the firm's capacity to guide clients through complex litigation at every stage of discovery.
Sharkey is a lifecycle litigator who provides strategic oversight of discovery in complex litigation, including coordinated mass proceedings, multidistrict litigation, and national class actions. She advises clients on initial analysis, responses to document requests, depositions, and broader litigation objectives to align decisions made during discovery with long-term case strategy, settlement considerations, and trial preparation.
Her work spans complex commercial disputes, product liability, mass torts, MDL proceedings, and arbitration. Sharkey has managed litigation portfolios, bellwether trials, coordinated actions, and nationwide disputes involving significant legal exposure, operational risk, and public scrutiny, regularly leading multidisciplinary teams through engagements that demand both strategic guidance and hands-on courtroom experience.
Having taken numerous matters from inception through trial and verdict, Sharkey brings direct insight into how early discovery decisions, evidentiary development, and positioning shape litigation outcomes. That trial-tested perspective informs her approach and sharpens her ability to identify what information will carry weight before judges and juries. She has served as trial counsel in securing defense verdicts and favorable resolutions in cases involving pharmaceutical products, consumer safety devices, automotive recalls, and alleged defective goods, and has represented Fortune 500 companies in disputes with implications for broader nationwide strategy.
"Christina brings a rare combination of deep eDiscovery expertise and trial-level experience from some of the country's most complex litigation,” said Christine Payne, who co-leads the Discovery Strategy team at Gunster. “Her arrival reinforces what many clients across the country already know—Gunster is where they should turn with their most challenging cases."
Sharkey's background spans private practice at two of the country's leading litigation firms as partner at Kirkland and Ellis LLP and counsel at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan, LLP, where she built a litigation-focused practice and managed high-stakes proceedings. She leads multidisciplinary teams and brings both strategic oversight and direct courtroom experience to every engagement. Sharkey also maintains a longstanding commitment to pro bono representation, including providing legal support to incarcerated individuals whose constitutional rights have been violated, Mexican nationals on death row in the United States, and Malawian prisoners sentenced to death. Notably, she led a team that secured a $19.3 million jury verdict on behalf of a plaintiff, for which the American Lawyer recognized the team as “Litigators of the Week.”
Sharkey received a B.S. from Pennsylvania State University and a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law.
###
Gunster. Florida's Law Firm for Leaders.
As a full-service law firm, Gunster provides legal counsel to leading organizations and individuals from its 13 offices statewide. Established in 1925, the firm has expanded, diversified and evolved, but always with a singular focus: Florida and its clients’ stake in it. A magnet for business-savvy attorneys who embrace collaboration for the greatest advantage of clients, Gunster’s growth has not been at the expense of personalized service but because of it. The firm serves clients from its offices in Boca Raton, Coral Gables, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Miami, Naples, Orlando, Palm Beach, Stuart, Tallahassee, Tampa, Vero Beach, and its headquarters in West Palm Beach. With more than 330 attorneys and consultants, and 300 committed support staff, Gunster is ranked among the top 200 largest law firms by the National Law Journal and has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Diverse Law Firms by Law360. More information about its practices, industries, offices and news is available at www.gunster.com.
