Head of Consumer Attorneys Preaches What He Practices

Thomas J. Brandi, President, Consumer Attorneys of California His Mission: Defeat Plan By Insurers That Dilutes Plaintiffs' Rights to Sue

Los Angeles Daily Journal, Friday, December 10, 1999

By Tom Dresslar
Daily Journal Staff Writer

SACRAMENTO- As a green, in house Caltrans attorney, Thomas J. Brandi found himself in trial before he took his first deposition.

Last month, before he chaired his first board meeting as president of the Consumer Attorneys of California, the San Francisco native found himself commanding the plaintiffs bar in one of its most important fights ever against the insurance industry.

A coalition, financially backed by seven major insurers, is pushing a ballot referendum to overturn legislation that would revive plaintiffs' right to sue defendants' carriers for bad-faith claims' handling. The fate of the two-bill package-supported by Gov. Gray Davis and agreed to by several commercial insurers and a property-casualty firm - will be decided by voters in the March 7, 2000, primary election.

Brandi, the son of a shipyard worker who died from asbestos poisoning, fully recognize that the referendum poses a formidable challenge. But the 1972 graduate of the University of San Francisco School of Law isn't entering the fray lacking faith.

"It's an extremely daunting position, the on the eve of taking over [as CAOC president], I'm walking into the dace of a nuclear blast, said Brandi. "My job is to defeat the enemy without having access to the same weaponry. I am confident once Californians understands these out-of-state corporations don't want to treat them honestly...and fairly, we'll win."

He talked about the referendum during a Nov. 19 luncheon speech at the CAOC's annual convention, held in the city where he was born, raised and still lives.

Delivered without a prepared text, Brandi's address drew rave reviews.

No doubt the enthusiastic response can be attributed partly to the fact he was preaching to the faithful. But the 52-year old Brandi also conveyed a heartfelt belief in the words he sent through the Grand Ballroom at the Sheraton Palace Hotel. And, from a CAOC perspective, that may be the most important asset he brings to the referencum campaign.

Tom Brandi brings a sincere devotion to the ideas of consumer protection that is evidenced in all his work and courtroom advocacy as well," said Rick Simons, 1998 CAOC president and a partner at Hayward's Furtado, Jaspovice & Simmons.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Alex Saldamando, who presided over a lengthy Dalkon Shield trial in which Brandi was plaintiffs counsel, agreed. "He has a genius rapport with juries," the jurist said. "Juries get the sense he really believes in his clients." Saldamando attributed Brandi's ability to connect with jurors to his being" a very down-to earth person who hasn't forgotten his roots."

Those roots ate in an Italian immigrant family that escaped from poverty and built a simple, middle-class life in San Francisco. Brandi and his older brother Robert grew up without the privileges of wealth it imbued with the values of education, hard work, fair play and respect for others.

He didn't attend law school on his parent's money. He worked his way through while he and his wife raised two children. His jobs included truck driver, warehouse worker, playground supervisor in a housing project, and teacher and coach in public schools.

If Brandi strikes a chord in jurors, if they get the sense he truly believes in what's he's doing, perhaps it's because that average guy background somehow comes through.

"I'm a very simple person", he said. "I grew up in a normal family. I have a regular, somewhat dull life. I am one of them."

Saldamando once had to mildly chastise Brandi during voir dire for tacking too hard in the "one of them" direction. The judge recalled Brandi had launched into a conversation with one panelist about how he used to deliver newspaper in her neighborhood and about whether she "knew Mrs. so-and- so."
Saldamando said he had to remind Brandi he was there to impanel a jury, not stroll down memory lane.

Brandi started law school in the late 1960s, when the Bay Area was a greenhouse for flower power and a hotbed of anti-Vietnam War activism. And he entered the profession in the spirit of the times.

"I think the experiences of the 1960s that all us participated in either directly or by osmosis, channeled my vision that the law was an instrument for social change," Brandi told Wesley J. Smith for an interview published in a book about the history of the CAOC. " I saw it as an opportunity to make the balance of power a little more equal."

The method that Brandi chose to achieve those goals was to be a plaintiffs attorney.

"The only ones who were really taking on the powerful outside the public sector were trial lawyers, "Brandi said in the interview with Smith. "They weren't afraid to take on General Motors or a big bank. I think given my background as essentially someone who didn't come from privilege...I knew what real lives were like, and I knew that the law could make a difference for people."

But finding it impractical to start with a prominent plaintiffs fir, Brandi's career took a six-year detour after law school. His first job was a defense attorney, representing Caltrans in eminent domain and tort cases in 1973-79.

One of the lawyers Brandi worked with at Caltrans was John F. Donovan, a senior trial attorney in the legal division and a 35-year veteran of the department. He said Brandi exhibited star quality early on.

"I knew he would be a success when he left," said Donovan. "Some people have it, and Tom was certainly on of those people." Time has proven the accuracy of Donovan's assessment.

For the past 20 years, Brandi has done nothing but represent plaintiffs, first at Abramson & Bianco, then at Bianco, Brandi & Jones, and finally at his own four lawyer firm since 1992. And he has compiled an impressive record during that time.

• Eight verdicts from $1 million to $15.3 million, with the highest figure coming in a recent highway design case out of Morro Bay.
   
• Dalkon Shield counsel from 1982 to 1997, and plaintiffs lead and liaison counsel in 1982 and 1984-85. Successfully opposed class action status in U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
   
• A widely varying practice, including highway design, product liability, medical malpractice, wrongful termination, insurance bad faith, aviation, shareholder rights, construction defect and fraud.
   

randi has entered the respect net only of plaintiff lawyers, but also defense attorneys and local judges. They describe him as a meticulous, thoroughly prepared attorney

and as a bulldog who has a flair for the rhetorical side of the business.

"I would say he's one of the best plaintiff attorneys in the state," said defense lawyer Kevin J. Dunne, a partner at San Francisco's Sedgwick Detert Moran & Arnold and Brandi's opponent in Dalkon Shield litigation. "He's tenacious. He's an excellent tactician and strategist, and a terrific oral advocate."

San Francisco Superior Court Presiding Judge Alfred G. Chiantelli called Brandi "one of the best trial attorneys ever to appear in my court as a plaintiffs attorney." The judge's praise focused on Brandi's preparation.

"He's an attorney who really knows how to use the Discovery Act to get information. There will be no "trial by ambush" with Tom Brandi. The other side's cards will always be face up, not down."

Donovan has litigated with Brandi and against him. 'I regard him as extremely competent opponent and a very principled man." Said Donovan. "He has been a very tough and very successful opponent. He is an extremely hard-working attorney. He does not rest on his laurels. When you hire Tom Brandi you can rest assured your case will be thoroughly prepared and excellently presented."

Brandi has been a CAOC member since 1979 but his active involvement was sporadic until five years ago.

Then came the 1994 elections and the GOP takeover Congress. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his allies unveiled the "Contract with America," which included a clause calling for tort reform. At that point, Brandi decided he would no longer be content with letting other CAOC members do the heavy lifting for him.

I realized ... I had to get involved," said Brandi in the interview with Smith, "that for too many years the David Caseys, the Gary G. Williams and the Rick Simonses of the world [all former CAOC presidents] had carried an unfair burden. It was time to wake up and get going."

randi's priorities as president have shifted, not surprisingly, with the filling of the bad-faith referendum. Still, he hopes to win enactment of the unfinished part of CAOC's legislative agenda. That list includes bills to curb mandatory arbitration clauses in employment and other contracts, reduce settlement agreements that conceal evidence of defective products, environmental hazards and financial fraud; and raise the $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases.

Brandi also wants to establish "practice groups" in various specialties. The groups would use the Internet to exchange ideas and information on such subjects as tactics, strategy and discovery. He instituted a similar program in 1998 when he was president of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association.

Whether in the Brandi leads the CAOC to victory in the referendum campaign and achieves the rest of his presidential goals remains to be seen. But this much seems certain; He will give his maximum effort, and probably demand the same from his membership.

He has displayed his hard-driving character not only in the courtroom but in the sports arena as well.

He was what Chiantelli described as a "scrappy" second baseman for St, Ignatius High School. He earned All-City honors, won a partial baseball scholarship to San Jose State and probably could have signed with the St. Louis Cardinals. Instead, he needed a scout's advice and remained in school.

Brandi learned the value of persistence and hard work on the playgrounds and streets of San Francisco's Sunset District, where he grew up.

"We played every day after school," said Brandi. "And I learned an extremely valuable lesson. There's always someone better than you, someone bigger, taller and faster. You just have to keep trying harder."

Mr. Brandi is a plaintiff's attorney. And he's one of the best. But in spite of all the success he's achieved, he remains modest. "I didn't come from privilege," he has said. "I know the law can make a difference for people."

Tom Brandi is a native San Franciscan, a child of the socially turbulent 1960s and the son of a shipyard worker who died from asbestos poisoning. Believing that the law was the best instrument for social change, Tom Brandi enrolled at USF School of Law "to help people in some way." He's never even spoken to lawyer before entering law school, and recalls asking only one question in class during the three years.

Mr. Brandi worked his way through college and USF Law School as a truck driver, warehouse worker, playground supervisor, and public school teacher and coach. "I didn't have much money, was married, and we had two kids in the three years that I was at USF. Law school was one of the most difficult and hardest times of my life. I felt law school stifled my creativity," he says. "But as difficult as that was, that's how much I like being an attorney. You have to do what you love, and USF made it possible."

In the intervening years, Mr. Brandi has done just that. Although he began his career as an attorney defending the State of California, for the past 20 years he's represented plaintiff in personal injury cases involving Dalkon Shield, "fen/phen," breast implants, dangerous products, dangerous roads, consumer fraud, and deceptive business practices. Today, Tom Brandi heads a four-person law office under his own name.

"Sometimes, the only place you can find a remedy is in the courtroom," he says, "It is through litigation that you can help people achieve just and fair compensation or put companies on notice that unacceptable conduct needs to be changes."

Of all his cases, Tom Brandi is most proud of the $12 million verdict awarded earlier this year to a poor family from Hunter's Point that was "totally disenfranchised-politically and economically. "He represented the family, which had lost three small children's grandmother, in a fire caused by a defective heating system in a home that didn't have a downstairs smoke detector. It was a case, he says, "not only negligence, but of indifference."

Even Mr. Brandi's opponents speak highly of him. " I would say he's one of the best plaintiff's attorney in the state," defense lawyer Kevin J. Dunne was quoted as

saying in a Los Angeles Daily Journal Story. Mr. Dunne, a partner at Sedgwick Detert Moran & Arnold, went up against Tom Brandi in the Dalkon Shield litigation. "He's tenacious. He's an excellent tactician and strategist, and a terrific oral advocate."

"To be a successful trial lawyer, you have to like people," Mr. Brandi says. "You have to understand the human condition. He believes juries reflect the fundamental values of society. "The rule of law must apply to everyone-citizen, entity or corporation.

Jurors can see through misinformation and find the truth. They know if you're genuine or not. They know if you're being logical and fair, I firmly believe in the jury system."

While serving in 2000 as President of CAOC (formerly known as California Trial Lawyers Association.). Mr. Brandi became involved in efforts to defeat Proposition 30, the plan by insurers to dilute plaintiffs' rights to sue. By giving some 300 speeches all over the state, he says, "I learned how people make decisions, and I learned how to listen more." He also met and worked with "a number of legislators interested in improving the lives of people - protecting victims of Northridge earthquake, providing low-cost insurance to poor people, ad providing remedies for HMOs who placed profits before patients' needs."

Mr. Brandi credits California Assembly Member Kevin Shelley and State Senator Martha Escutia with working tirelessly to advance consumer causes, "The experience gave me a greater understanding in to the commitment of those seeking to protect consumer interests and the power of those seeking to thwart those efforts," he says, "California is the biggest playing field in the United States. What happens here happens everywhere else - that's why insurers fight so hard here.

Of his tenure as CAOC President, Tom Brandi says he us most proud of "having established practice groups that enable members to share information and improve their clients' chances for success, and in seeing pro-consumer legislation through to its conclusion."

Reflecting on his career Mr. Brandi says, "It's wonderful to help people who are poor and have never had an advantage to take on a large institution and win. It's a wonderfully liberating feeling," he says. "USF provided me the opportunity to give my clients the dignity and respect they're entitled to."