Profile of Attorney Don Beck

Donald J. Beck, whose forte is handling large, difficult liability cases, has been a practicing attorney for 24 years now, specializing in major personal injury, wrongful death and bad faith cases for plaintiff.  Before landing in a career in law, he tried working in the insurance industry where he realized it wasn’t where he belonged.

When he was a child, Beck’s family moved so often that he went to 45 different schools before graduating from high school.  After arriving in Los Angeles as a college student, he graduated from Southwestern University School of Law in 1976, going to school in the evenings while working full time during the day.  He began working with large personal injury cases almost immediately after law school.
           
Beck enjoys working at home, despite the proximity of the nearby Pacific Ocean to tempt him.  “Left to my own devices, I’m much more compulsive than if I were in an office environment,” says Beck.  He claims that the practice of law moves so slowly that its amenable to his approach to working.  With such a working environment, one can see why there’s not a high turnover rate at the firm.
           
A typical day for Beck starts with a cappuccino, orange juice and checking out the financial news to monitor his stocks.  The rest of the day, he mixes going for a run or riding his National Show Horse.  He is constantly on the phone and computer, which is tapped in to the computer network at the law office.
           
Beck explains that the firm’s caseload, by choice, is much light than that of most plaintiffs’ attorneys.  He disputes the theory that smaller cases are less work.  “You can spend as much time on a small case as you can on a big one, or at least disproportionately so,” says Beck.  “Economically speaking, it’s better to work on the bigger cases except that it’s almost impossible for most plaintiff lawyers to finance a big case.”
           
This factor accounts for the vast number of referrals, often involving complicated sets of facts, hundreds of witnesses and tens of thousands of documents, the firm receives from other plaintiffs’ attorneys, who may not have the expertise or financial ability to handle the larger cases.  According to Beck, it’s not unusual for the firm to spend a quarter of a million dollars in advance preparing a client’s case for trial without any guarantees of a profit.
           
Another distinction of practicing personal injury law at this level, Beck notes, aside from now being “ambulance chasers,” is that the work is more of the focus than someone’s verbal threats.  “Treating people with respect and courtesy goes a whole lot further at this level of practice.  It’s like a basketball game.  You go in and fight like hell and when it’s over, you shake hands.  You respect what the other guy has done and can do his skills, and you go on to the next one,” says Beck.
           
In addition to bad faith cases against insurance companies and oil field injuries, Beck has worked on everything from minor explosions to black-box automobile seat belt cases.  He states that the keys to success include perception and creativity, recognizing critical threads in complex cases and developing supporting evidence.  Additionally, the opportunity to learn about everything from aircraft engine metallurgy to operator presence sensing devices for machinery is what he enjoys most about what he does.  “I enjoy unearthing the diamonds,” says Beck.
           
That’s what he had to do in Leavitt v Ultramar Corp. for his client, a welder who was severely injured in a tank explosion at work.  The case involved approximately 70 depositions that stacked up more than 6 feet high and tens of thousands of documents.  After nearly two years, Beck was able to obtain an $8 Million Dollar settlement against the multiple defendants in the case in a three-day intensive mediation conducted by mediator Viggo Boserup of Los Angeles Boserup Mediation Group.
           
Recalling the complicated case and difficult mediation, Beck says that the way to settle cases is to prepare for trial.  “to an unmeasurable degree, the cse will settle because the defense senses your preparedness for trial,” says Beck.  Less than an estimated 5 percent of cases the firm handles goes to trial, which Beck states is a very labor and cost intensive process, not to mention hell on the personal psyche.  “Going to trial is about the closest thing to a war that we do in a civilized society,” says Beck.
           
In preparing the Leavitt case, Beck explains that the discovery process and the choice of experts played a large role.  “This case was enormously technical in a field that is not of common knowledge for most people so who you hire as an expert is the real key because they can point you in a lot of directions that you might not have thought of yourself, or more importantly, they can point out the significance of things you’ve discovered which you might not have appreciated,” Beck notes.
           
Though experts are important, Beck explains that they’re not the key, which is another attribute to the firm’s own expertise.  “We do the work, find the expert, explain the facts that support our theory and the expert agrees with us,” says Beck.  “We know, from a jury-appeal standpoint, what will carry the case so we put together the strategy and an assemblage of facts.  If you let the expert decide what your case is going to be, you’re heading down the wrong road because he’s not going to have a clue about what the jury is going to find useful or persuasive.”
           
Oddly enough, despite the technical nature of the cases the firm represents, demonstrative evidence is not emphasized as much as it is by other attorneys in the industry.  Beck states that there is a tendency for attorneys, particularly those not handling these larger cases on a daily basis, to believe that the key to winning a case is having a full-motion, computerized example of how the accidents come about.  But Beck feels that juries don’t need all the smoke and mirrors. “You should be able to explain the case to the jury like you would to your neighbor.  You’re not going to bring computer graphics and the like to tell your neighbor what happened and it can work against your purpose.”  So keep it simple, Beck advises.
           
Another member of the firm, who has worked with Beck for 24 years, describes him as somewhat of a super sleuth.  “He follows evidence from one deposition to the next and just keeps getting little bits and pieces of the story until it all comes out.  It takes a lot of patience.  He’s very smart and he has an excellent ability to plow through the minutiae and get to the important issues and evidence in the case.”
           
The most consistent words out of the mouths of the attorneys who have worked with Beck seem to be about his cordial manner and the way he devours facts in order to build a strong case.  After his first encounter with Beck at mediation in the Leavitt case, mediator Boserup says “[Beck] is very solid and knowledgeable about his case and he works hard to protect the best interests of his clients.”
           
Cliff Schaffer, president and managing partner at Los Angeles’ Schaffer & Lax, opposing counsel for defendant Ultramar in the Leavitt case, has crossed paths with Beck’s firm more than a few times over the past 10 years and says that Beck did an excellent job of working up the case, creating a lot of issues that would have had to have been absorbed by the jury.  “I think [Beck] handles himself as a gentleman and a professional,” says Schaffer.  “He is a straight-shooter and a worthy adversary.”
           
David Frishman, a senior associate at Schaffer & Lax, also calls Beck a worthy opponent.  “He’s got a cordial style and he’s really professional,” says Frishman.

Estey and Bomberger, LLP
2869 India Street
San Diego, California 92103

Phone      619.543.1391
Toll Free  800.672.1036