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--The firm's substantial and growing verdicts and settlements are a tribute to the vast majority of its Legal Assistants providing quality work on behalf of the firm's clients, whom are the priority.
The firm maintains high professional standards. The firm has:
• A board certified civil trial attorney; a certification held by approximately one tenth of one percent of California attorneys.
• A “SuperLawyer” limited to the top 5% of employment discrimination attorneys in California, selected by Thomson-Reuters-Westlaw based in part on peer reviews.
• Obtained verdicts and settlements totaling over $50 million, mostly in the last 10 years. It has four top 50 and two top 100 verdicts and settlements in discrimination cases in California or the United States since 2014. The firm did six jury trials in 2022 including a $1.2 million verdict for a one-year employee making less than $20 per hour.*
• Obtained an average result per trial in the last 15 jury trials (2018-2022) of over $500,000. The firm’s average settlement 2020-2022 was just under $200,000; a 40% increase over the period 2017-2019.*
• (*Note: Results depend on the unique facts of each case. The cited results exclude about 5% of the firm’s cases because they involved factors beyond the firm’s control, such as the defendant going out of business or a client medically unable to proceed.)
• The firm has been doing trials in downtown Los Angeles and throughout California litigating against Fortune 500 firms for over 30 years. Attorney Lyon has done about 80 trials and arbitrations, over 3000 depositions and over 3000 court appearances, and has appeared in numerous state and all federal courts in California.
• Although we are a trial firm, we win about half of all appeals, including several published opinions on First Amendment free speech, the National Environmental Protection Act, etc.
• Attorney Lyon is a board certified civil trial attorney, a SuperLawyer, has attended trial colleges put on by: Jerry Spence, NITA, CAALA, CELA, Trojan Horse and Trial Lawyers University. He previously worked for a nationwide law firm, taught legal writing at LSU Law School, clerked for judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (covering Florida, Alabama and Georgia), and the Idaho Supreme Court, including death penalty cases, interned with the Minnesota Court of Appeals, was Student Director of the Federal Income Tax Clinic at the University of Minnesota Law School, and was previously a single and multi-engine, instrument and commercial flight instructor.
• The firm has employed attorneys from Harvard, UCLA and other quality law schools.
• The firm provides its Legal Assistants, typically graduates of top universities with top grades, with an immersive experience so they will have a complete understanding of what a civil litigator does before they go to law school, facilitating their informed decision-making about one’s career path.
• The firm trains its Legal Assistants by providing an extensive form file with templates, samples, and how-to instructions for virtually every document a Legal Assistant is asked to prepare. Every draft of every documents is reviewed and commented upon in writing by an attorney. After the Legal Assistant has done the same type of document about three times it becomes considerably more routine. Legal Assistants learn to prepare about 30 different documents so the first three months have a steep learning curve, but it can be done within about 45 hours of diligent work per week, and should be approached as one would a new class.
• The firm has a contractor handling much of the repetitive bulk work to free Legal Assistants for tasks that are more interesting and add value, such as interviewing witnesses, drafting highly fact-specific document requests, drafting mediation briefs, and assisting trial preparation, including practicing direct and cross examination with the client, or displaying exhibits in the trial itself.
• Successful Legal Assistants proceed with the understanding practicing law is a profession like practicing medicine or engineering passenger aircraft - but with the added dimension of being opposed by intelligent, determined adversaries. It requires grit and is not for everyone. It requires self-motivation, including when one’s supervising attorney is occupied in trial(s). Finding a position that matches one’s skill set and diligence is part of normal career progression. However, this firm provides an outstanding opportunity for those committed to becoming professionals.
• Several of the firm’s Legal Assistants have gone on to Harvard and other ivy league law schools and the London School of Economics, with strong letters of recommendation from the firm.
However if a legal assistant chills while their supervising attorney is occupied with six jury trials in nine months, an employer with a more even pace may be a better fit.
