aum Hedlund represents individuals and families across the nation in the preparation, settlement and trial of serious personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits. The firm focuses its practice on commercial transportation and drug products liability specifically involving airline, general aviation, bus, train and commercial trucking accidents as well as defective pharmaceutical products, chiefly antidepressants.
Our law firm was established 30 years ago and has offices in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. We have represented victims of personal injury and wrongful death for the last 20 years.
Attorneys of Baum Hedlund come from varied backgrounds and offer a unique combination of skills that are particularly useful in the investigation of defective products and commercial transportation accidents. Two of the firm’s attorneys are also pilots, former Adjunct Aviation Accident Law Professor, Ronald L.M. Goldman, is a private pilot and John Greaves is an airline-transport pilot and served as a captain of a major airline; Additionally, Paul Hedlund was a mechanical engineer and Clark Aristei, a law professor, prior to joining Baum Hedlund. Many of the firm's attorneys have delivered Continuing Legal Education accredited lectures on the complexities of mass tort litigation.
Baum Hedlund's staff has the experience and education to effectively handle complex cases from intake to resolution. Baum Hedlund attorneys have served on over 17 plaintiff steering committees in mass tort litigation that manage complex multi-district litigation arising from airline disasters, pharmaceutical drug defects and construction failures. Appointed lead counsel for the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee (MDL-1574) Paxil Products Liability Litigation, Baum Hedlund partner Karen Barth Menzies has been awarded Lawyer of the Year by Lawyer's Weekly, California Lawyer of the Year by California Lawyer magazine, and one of The National Law Journal's Top 40 Under 40 for her "extraordinary achievements" and "impressive track record" for "stepping up her fight in the past few years, advocating that pharmaceutical companies should warn about the alleged risks of antidepressant drugs.” In 2006 she was named a Consumer Attorney of the Year Finalist by Consumer Attorneys of California.
Baum Hedlund’s staff includes attorneys from top law schools, the majority of whom have earned the highest attorney AV® rating and are listed in Martindale-Hubbell's Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, Aviation Counsel Magazine's list of Recommended High Flyers, Marquis Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America and Who's Who in American Law. Inclusion in these publications is solely based on merit. The firm's long history of professional and educational excellence continues with each case entrusted to it.
It is our job to obtain optimum results for our clients by using effective litigation strategies and tactics. We have many years of hard-fought, winning experience through which we have accumulated both public and confidential statistics regarding major personal injury and wrongful death case results nationwide. We regularly supplement this information with national database statistics. We have successfully litigated or settled cases involving virtually all of the major insurance carriers. Consequently, we know the merits of these cases and the practices of our opponents. We use both to benefit our clients.
Baum Hedlund maintains a traditional law library and has state-of-the-art computerized legal research data banks. We have immediate access to:
- the latest federal, state or local laws and regulations
- federal, state and local court rules
- economic and scientific experts in all geographic areas
- all relevant product-safety information
- government product databases.
In some cases, our quest for justice has not ended merely with the successful resolution of the lawsuit but has continued long afterwards in an attempt to prevent harm to others. After we tried the last of the cases against Ford Motor Company arising out of the deaths of 24 children in Carrollton, Kentucky, we wrote to every state official in the country involved in the procurement of school buses and campaigned to relocate the gas tanks to an unexposed position inside the frame.
Other continuing safety efforts have included arranging for our client and Paul Hedlund to testify before the California State Legislature regarding seismic safety after the death of our client's son due to the collapse of a building known to be vulnerable to tremors during an earthquake. Similarly, we helped present testimony to the FDA regarding harmful pharmaceuticals placed on the market following the FDA's failure to accept dangerous side-effect reaction studies from the manufacturer. Our firm arranged for one of our clients to participate in the recall campaign of defective drain covers in spas, hot tubs and whirlpool bathtubs after her daughter's hair was caught in the drain and she drowned.
We also helped in the massive effort to amend an 80-year-old federal law, the "Death on the High Seas Act." We asked all of our clients from the TWA 800, SwissAir 111 and EgyptAir 990 tragedies, who were affected by this law, to participate in a campaign which we organized, to write Congress urging them to pass earlier proposed legislation. The new law now provides equitable treatment for families of passengers involved in international aviation disasters.
Baum Hedlund assisted the families of Hemophiliacs in getting legislation passed to provide humanitarian aid in the form of a $100,000 grant to thousands of families affected by HIV contaminated Hemophilia medication. Once the legislation was passed in the form of the Ricky Ray Act, Baum Hedlund obtained their lobbying support which led to full funding for the act shortly thereafter. This financial assistance helped individuals and families who had been emotionally and economically devastated by the impact of AIDS on their lives.
The firm's staff, many of whom have worked together for more than twenty-five years, stresses client orientation and service. We give our clients a toll-free number to make reaching us effortless. We consider prompt response to client communications as one of our highest priorities. We recognize that representing our clients involves more than research and litigation; we provide extra care and attention to their special needs and vulnerability. We pride ourselves in making communication with our clients the cornerstone of our practice. In fact, many of our clients remain in touch with us long after their cases have resolved.
We hope we exceed all of your expectations and that you give us the opportunity to do so.
