The Spirit of CAOC Thomas J. Brandi

By Attorney Wesley J. Smith

Q: Tell me a bit about your background: your parents, your youth, and some of the influence that led you to become a lawyer.

A: I was born and raised in San Francisco. My parents are both from immigrant families. My dad was a man who worked in blue-collar jobs. He worked in the shipyards and ultimately died of asbestos mesothelioma [a form of cancer caused by inhaling asbestos fibers]. My mother was, and remains, the brightest person in our family. She skipped a grade growing up and graduated from high school early. She had a chance to go to college, but her dad told her that girls don't go to college. She got a job as the secretary of a corporation and I think did more than simply take dictation. I was a kid from a working-class background in San Francisco. I never met a lawyer until I went to law school. I held lawyers in complete awe.

Q: What sparked your interest in law?

A: I went to law school in the late sixties, and I think the experience of the 1960s that all of as participated in, either directly or by osmosis, channeled my vision that the law was a b instrument of social change. I saw it as an opportunity to help people. I saw it as opportunity to make the balance of power a little bit more equal. I will never forget the day that I passed the bar. That weekend I was with my dad and three uncles, none of whom had graduated from high school and three whom had not even gone to high school. It was a day in December and we were talking about the Forty-Niners. One of them said, "Well, they can't mess with us anymore. We now have access to knowledge." It meant that with my becoming an attorney, we now had arrived as a family.

Q: We spoke before the interview about how we both come from Italian immigrant stock. Tell me a little bit about you Italian heritage and hoe that impact you as a person.

A: My father was a very quite man. He could convey more with gesture or the nod of his head than I could with all the words. I have the ability to say. He was the greatest nonverbal communicator that I have ever seen. Education was important in house. After all, that is the immigrant's dream and it was something that my parent didn't have. But my father never pressed us. He used to say, "Just do the best you can." My family was a close family. I think family values in the true sense of respecting and honoring family members was extremely important. In my family, on both sides, we were people who came from poverty and came here for a better life. I remember I had a scholarship to San Jose State as a result of sports. I got married, and then I went to the University of San Francisco Law School, during which I worked full time and my wife and I had two kids.

Q: Talk about getting on with adulthood!

A: (Laughing) Lord knows how we ever did all that! You work full time, you're married, you have children. My wife and I have been together for longer than we have been adults.

Q: And through this you were working and in law school.

A: The law school process was overwhelming at times simply because there were so many other activities going on, But these were very happy days - very happy. I left the house before seven every morning. I got home at noon and my wife and I would meet for twenty minutes to have a sandwich together. Then I was back to my crazy schedule and I would not get home until after ten. Through her assistance and help, I was able to get through it.

Q: You have been married how long?

A: Twenty -eight years.

Q: Back to your decision to go to law school, had you thought about what kind of law you wanted to practice?

A: The only kind of work I ever wanted to do was to represent consumers.

Q: How did that come into your consciousness?

A: I am not exactly sure how. Through the prism of a twenty year old in the early sixties, I viewed society, and it seemed to me that there were a lot of people who had a lot of power and a lot people who didn't. The only ones who were really taking on the powerful outside of the public sector were trial lawyers. They weren't afraid to take on A General Motors or a big bank. I think given my background as essentially someone who didn't come from country clubs or privilege but rather from common, ordinary people with ordinary lives, I knew what real lives were like, and I knew that the law could make a difference for people, and I knew what access to justice meant for people who had not previously had access to justice. During the time I was in college, I had driven a tuck and worked in an introduction into what life was really like in a housing project. It was all a process that widened my horizon as to the reality of the human condition.

Q: What did you do while working your way through law school?

A: The job I enjoyed most was teaching in the San Francisco public schools, where I also coached. I really learned the highs and lows of being a coach. I coached a soccer team that had no wins and no goals, and I coached a basketball team that had eighteen wins and no losses!

Q: What happened when you graduated from law school?

A: Well, certainly I wanted to work in one of the great consumer firms, such as the Walkup firm or the Boccardo firm. But it just wasn't practical. I hadn't had the opportunity to work as a clerk. I got the opportunity to work in a wonderful environment, though. I was hired as a deputy trail lawyer with the California Department of Transportation. They had excellent teachers there. I was in trial right away before I took my first deposition. They had been a private office that had become a public office, so it was a great opportunity to learn how to try cases.

Q: Was that a condemnation practice or defense work?

A: We did some condemnation work, but essentially it was defending the state. I had an opportunity to try a case against Jim Boccardo. I still use strategies in my jury selection that he used against us in that case. In looking back on it, I see that I was an absolute kid and he was clearly picking my pocket, but I was too stupid to realize it (Laughing) I had the opportunity to try case against a veritable who's who of consumer firms. Eventually, Al Abramson offered me a job in 1979. In 1982, I went into my own firm with Bob Bianco and Barbara Jones, who is now a judge. Then I started this firm in 1992.

Q: You were from cutting your teeth in defense and condemnation work to practicing nothing but consumer law.

A: My goal starting out was to do exactly what I am doing. But, I recognize that since, I wasn't going to have the opportunity to work with a plaintiff's firm right away, I had to approach it in a different fashion. I got great trial practice experience. We were often thrown into a cross-examination in trial when we hadn't deposed people. Boy, did I ever go to school! It was a wonderful experience.

Q: Doing defense work initially, did you learn any of the tricks of the defense trade that help you now as a consumer lawyer?

A: The state lawyers didn't really practice like defense lawyers. We looked at it from a different focus. We had a lot of liability issues because, of course, everybody was trying to prove that the state engineers did something wrong, so you dealt primarily with experts. The state was also trying to prove that some driver or someone else caused an accident, which is similar to what you do for the plaintiff. With respect to the damages, much of it was the same. I found the state lawyers I practices with to be extremely honorable, honest, ethical, and hard working and not people who took shortcuts.

Q: In terms of your plaintiffs work, what kind of cases dif you get with the Abramson firm?

A: Initially, I worked on aviation cases because Al was one of the pioneers of aviation practice in our country and was a great lawyer. I also, through a phone call, got involved in the Dalkon Shield litigation. Within a couple of years, I was a lead counsel working in opposition to the class action, which had been brought to eliminate the rights of the consumers injured by the shield. What I believed was that each woman should have an individual opportunity to have her own day in court and not be tied together in a class because each case was unique and distinct and the impact on each woman's life was unique. We argue that in the Ninth Circuit and we were successful. Two years later, Griffin Bell, the former attorney general, filed the same proceeding in Richmond, Virginia.

Q: It upsets me how many supposedly proconsumer Democrats are really corporate lawyers who work very hard against consumer interests when not in government.

A: I think that one if the interesting aspects we have seen as we have gone through this process is that people who seem supportive of consumer interests from a distance, when you get up close, are hurdles rather than passageways.

Q: When did you first become involved with CAOC?

A: I have been a member of CAOC since 1979 or 1980. I became actively involved in the 1988 initiative fight. After the initiatives were defeated, I went home. In November 1994 the morning after the election, I awakened to hear Newt Gingrich talking about the Contract with America and how Republican were going to eliminate product liability and take on the lawyers. I said to my wife, "If I am going, I am going down swinging." I called that day and became involved in CAOC. I sought to become part of the at-large board. Mary Alexander appointed me in the first year, and here I am four years later, president-elect.

Q: So it took Newt Gingrich declaring war on lawyers for you to decide to become a leader.

A: I was like many of the people who may be reading this who are sleeping, letting others do the job. I realized I was wrong and that I had to get involved, that for too many years the David Caseys, the Gary Gwilliams, and the Rick Simonses of the world had carried an unfair burden. It was time to wake up and get going.

Q: One of the ideas that struck me in researching this book, an I think Buddy Herzog gave me this line, is that a few hundred consumer attorneys saves the civil justice system in the Unites States.

A: Think what would have happened if consumer attorneys in California had not stood up. We would have national no-fault. We would have caps on damages. We would have product liability laws that protects only manufactures. Consumers would be, in essence, with few rights and fewer remedies.

Q: Up until now, when your life is about to change dramatically as you become president-elect and then president, what was your most intense activity on behalf of CAOC?

A: My work against the Terrible Two Hundreds. I spoke to retirement groups, I spoke to AARP, I spoke to mothers club communion breakfast at various church parishes, I spoke to labor organizations, I spoke to the Rotary and Lions Clubs. I found that uniquely, while people have distrust of the civil justice system, they want it desperately. They don't care if they like their lawyers, they want to make sure they have access to lawyers because they know they are in an unequal position, that certain interests in this country will trample them if they ever have the opportunity.

Q: You will serve in the year 2000, after being induced in November 1999. I hear rumblings that new anticonsumer initiatives are threatened in 2000.

A: Yes. There may be an initiative that would apply 51's damage limitations across the board, beyond pain and suffering. In response, I think we have to focus on one issue: When a consumer is taken advantage of, where does society wasn't to affix the responsibility? Is the wrongdoer going to be allowed to escape and the innocent person forced to shoulder part of the cost? We are talking about seniors with pension funds. We are talking about people who rely on representations when they invest. I look at the way I grew up. I come from a family where people weren't blessed to have an education and they had to rely completely on professionals, whether a doctor or a lawyer. A violation of that simple trust is horrible, and these people must be held accountable. If we don't hold them accountable, we lose something very important as a society.

Q: Do you see any other initiatives coming?

A: Perhaps a no-fault or cap on contingency fees, this despite Californians twice rejecting these proposals.

Q: You have already started to reduce your personal practice and have hired lawyers into your firm to ensure that your clients don't suffer. What are you planning on doing as president-elect and what are some of your initial plans for the year 2000, in addition to fighting ant initiatives that might be on the ballot?

A: As a president-elect, I hope to work in the legislative arena. One of m y goals as president-elect and president is to make sure that Californians have the opportunity to have all of their rights enforced. By that, I mean I would like to see a substantial change in MICRA. I would like to see the bad faith practices of insurance companies result in adequate remedies for Californians. Too many people are being taken advantage of. I would also like to look at a public education and see the message of access to justice be spread and the true face of tort reform exposed. I believe the proponents of tort reform are simply trying to tilt the field in their favor. There are tobacco, insurance, the powerful interests. They want the advantage when walk into a courtroom. They already have the advantage in Congress, not only in the Republican Party, which has the majority, but also among Democrats.

Q: Why are you willing to make a substantial financial sacrifice to volunteer to be president?

A: Every one of us has an obligation to help. Every one of us has an obligation to give back. We have all benefited from this organization's work. I am a consumer just like everybody else. I want to see the system protect even the most unfortunate as well as the most privileged. I want to see equality. If everybody would give back just a little bit, we would all be far better off.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Attorney Wesley J. Smith practiced law between 1975 and 1985, at which time he quit full-time practice to pursue a career in issue advocacy, the media, and writing. He has authored or co-authored eight books, including four with consumer advocate Ralph Nader: Winning the Insurance Game, The Frugal Shopper, Collision Course: The truth about Airline Safety, and No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of Justice in America. His latest book is Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder, Smith's next book will be an exploration of bioethics.