Report: Los Angeles County ranked among nation's top courts for plaintiff verdicts

Los Angeles County juries can make defendant companies sweat, plaintiffs' lawyers say -- and a new Lex Machina report offers numbers to back that up.

Plaintiffs won more than $2.4 billion in jury awards in Los Angeles County Superior Court between 2023 and 2025, according to a report released Tuesday by legal analytics company Lex Machina.

Gary A. Dordick of Dordick Law Corporation in Beverly Hills attributed his firm's strong showing to hard work, a seven-day workweek and a steady diet of trials.

"If somebody wants to be a good trial lawyer, they have to try cases and learn the art," Dordick said in a phone interview Tuesday. "A lot of people want shortcuts or think they can just stand up and ask for billions of dollars, and a jury is just going to give it to them, and that's not the case. It's hard work and dedication, and that's what this profession is about."

Parris Law Firm attorney Alexander R. Wheeler said he was proud that the 23-lawyer firm appeared alongside firms with more than 1,000 attorneys.

"Pound for pound, I think we're the best represented law firm on the list," Wheeler said.

Unlike mass tort firms that made the list, Wheeler said, Parris earned its spot by handling a high volume of single-plaintiff cases.

"They were all really big verdicts, but none of them were the $100 million-plus verdicts that you get in mass torts," he said.

Brian J. Panish, whose firm, Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP, appeared in the report with more than $72 million in jury awards, was more restrained. He said his firm's internal numbers were higher and said he would take the report with a "grain of salt."

"The only way they know [of a verdict] is if it's reported in the databases they search," Panish said. "Many verdicts are not reported in any database."

Still, Panish said the report shows Los Angeles County produces a high number of large verdicts and could offer useful insight to defense counsel.

"They would look at the large numbers that are awarded by juries in Los Angeles County and have some concern, obviously, that they have the potential to lose substantially," he said. "As far as the plaintiff, I think each case varies so much that you can't really go on a statistical model."

The report, based on data compiled through Lex Machina, identified Los Angeles County as one of the nation's leading venues for high-exposure civil litigation, driven in large part by two verdicts of roughly $950 million each.

In Moore v. Johnson & Johnson et al., a Los Angeles jury awarded approximately $16 million in compensatory damages and $950 million in punitive damages in a wrongful death lawsuit involving mesothelioma. The report identified Dean Omar Branham Shirley, which represented the plaintiff, as the top-ranking plaintiffs' firm by total award amount, with roughly $966 million in verdicts during the reporting period.

Another major contributor was Solar Eclipse Investment Fund III LLC et al. v. CohnReznick LLP et al., in which a jury awarded more than $950 million in 2024 in litigation stemming from an alleged fraudulent investment scheme involving mobile solar generators.

Other plaintiffs' firms also secured significant verdicts in Los Angeles County during the period. According to the report, Parris Law Firm obtained approximately $161 million in jury awards, followed by Greenberg Gross with $160 million and Dordick Law Corporation with $125 million.

The report also examined defense-side trial activity. The California Department of Justice participated in 118 trials during the reporting period, more than any other litigant identified in the analysis. Most were bench trials involving state agencies and enforcement actions.

Among private firms, the Law Offices of Robert S. Gitmeid & Associates recorded the highest trial volume, appearing in 69 cases. According to the report, those proceedings were nonjury matters involving debt collection and creditor-rights disputes.

National firms also maintained a substantial presence in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith participated in 60 trials across practice areas including insurance and employment litigation, while Mark R. Weiner & Associates handled 51 jury trials, among the highest jury-trial totals reported.