Best Lawyers Honorees from Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman
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Best Lawyer Since: 2016
Recognized for: Consumer Protection Law, Personal Injury Litigation, and Product Liability
Litigation
Michael is the senior managing shareholder of Baum Hedlund Aristei &
Goldman. He has successfully led the firm through thousands of wrongful
death and personal injury cases stemming from major pharmaceutical product
liability and commercial transportation mass disasters.
Michael directs all of the firm’s mass tort litigation involving
defective pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and other consumer products,
all of which require extensive experience litigating product liability
issues. He has and in depth understanding of scientific issues, biomedical
research, clinical trials, statistics, the pharmaceutical industry, and
marketing. He also oversees the firm’s class actions and whistleblower cases.
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Best Lawyer Since: 2021
Recognized for: Product Liability Litigation and Product Liability Litigation
Brent is a senior shareholder and vice president at Baum Hedlund Aristei
& Goldman. As one of the firm’s lead trial attorneys, Brent
manages a highly-trained team of attorneys on all of the firm’s
cases involving consumer fraud, mass tort litigation and pharmaceutical
product liability.
His success on the first three Monsanto Roundup trials garnered national
recognition for obtaining verdicts totaling $2.4 billion.
Brent was co-lead trial counsel in
Pilliod et al. v. Monsanto Co. which resulted in a landmark jury verdict of $2.055 billion in 2019, the
ninth-largest personal injury jury verdict in U.S. history at the time.
He is the youngest lawyer in the United States to win a multi-billion
dollar jury verdict.
In the wake of the historic courtroom victory in
Pilliod, Brent spent hundreds of hours in settlement negotiations, seeking to
achieve the best possible result for his clients. He helped negotiate
one of the largest mass tort settlements in history: $10.9 billion to
resolve tens of thousands of pending Roundup cases against Monsanto (now Bayer).
Brent received numerous awards and accolades for his role in the Monsanto
Roundup litigation and is now widely recognized as one of the nation’s
top trial attorneys. After resolving the firm’s Roundup cases, Brent
turned his attention to the
Zantac cancer litigation. He represents thousands of clients in cases alleging the popular heartburn
medication causes several forms of cancer.
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Best Lawyer Since: 2022
Recognized for: Personal Injury Litigation
Bijan Esfandiari is a shareholder at Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman
who focuses his practice on pharmaceutical product liability litigation.
Bijan has successfully represented numerous clients in state and federal
courts across the U.S. at both the trial and appellate level in personal
injury and wrongful death cases.
Throughout his career, Bijan has worked on cases that shaped and developed
the law to benefit consumers harmed by dangerous pharmaceutical drugs
and medical devices. In one such case, the Court agreed with Bijan’s
arguments and, in an issue of first impression, held that drug manufacturers
owe an affirmative duty to warn of the risks associated with children’s
off-label use. Bijan oversees the firm’s Gardasil HPV vaccine litigation
against Merck.
Best Lawyer Since: 2017
Recognized for: Aviation Law, Personal Injury Litigation, and Product Liability Litigation
Tim is a pilot and shareholder at Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, where
he concentrates his practice on product liability and aviation and commercial
ground transportation accidents which result in personal injury or death.
Best Lawyers
selected Tim as the
2020 “Lawyer of the Year” for Personal Injury Litigation in
Los Angeles.
The
Best Lawyers “Lawyer of the Year” award is presented to one lawyer who
receives the highest overall peer feedback in one legal practice area
in one metropolitan region. This distinction exemplifies an exceptional
level of trust and respect that an attorney has earned from his or her peers.
A veteran of the United States Marine Corps, Tim served in Operations Desert
Shield and Desert Storm. He represents service members harmed in
the 2017 AAV explosion at Camp Pendleton Marine Base in San Diego County,
California. Tim is proud to represent many men and women in the military in their
personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits against aircraft product manufacturers.
Best Lawyer Since: 2021
Recognized for: Aviation Law, Personal Injury Litigation, and Product Liability Litigation
Clay Robbins III is an attorney and shareholder at Baum Hedlund Aristei
& Goldman. He focuses his practice on transportation accident litigation
and mass disasters.
Over the last 35 years, Clay’s exemplary track record of success
in commercial transportation accident cases has earned the respect of
both his clients and his peers.
Clay has handled a multitude of complex cases throughout his career involving
major commercial transportation accidents, including airlines, general
aviation, trucking and boating accidents. He successfully represented
the plaintiffs in an aviation insurance bad faith action that resulted
in over $9 million in compensatory and punitive damages for his clients.
In recognition of his client advocacy, Clay has earned Martindale Hubbell’s
coveted peer review rating of A.V. Preeminent (the highest possible rating
for preeminent legal ability and ethics). The Los Angeles County Superior
Court has also appointed Clay as a Judge Pro Tem.
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Best Lawyer Since: 2013
Recognized for: Aviation Law, Personal Injury Litigation, and Product Liability Litigation
Ron is a pilot and veteran trial lawyer, board certified by the National
Board of Trial Advocacy as a Civil Trial Attorney and Civil Pretrial Practice
Advocate. He is a senior shareholder and the senior trial attorney for
Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, where he focuses his practice on commercial
transportation liability and drug product liability.
With more than 50 years of experience practicing law, Ron has litigated
hundreds of commercial transportation product liability cases. Ron was
the lead negotiator in a settlement stemming from the Jan. 8, 2003 Air
Midwest Flight 5481 crash in Charlotte, NC. The settlement required the
airline and maintenance company to
deliver an unprecedented official public apology to the families for the crash. Ron also taught Aviation Accident Law for 21 years as an adjunct law
professor at Pepperdine School of Law.
Monique Alarcon | Best Lawyers – Ones to Watch
Ones to Watch Since: 2023
Recognized for: Personal Injury Litigation and Product Liability Litigation
Monique Alarcon is a Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman attorney that focuses
her practice on medical device cases, pharmaceutical drug liability, and
consumer fraud litigation. In addition to her work at Baum Hedlund, Monique
is also an adjunct Professor of Law for Loyola Law School’s Hispanic
National Bar Association (HNBA) Moot Court Team.
In a recent case, Monique successfully sued the Burbank Police Department
(California) for police misconduct, civil rights violations, assault,
battery, unlawful seizure, excessive force, and negligence. She also
obtained a settlement from the City of Irvine when the city’s former mayor violated a
citizen’s first amendment rights by blocking the citizen from posting
on her personal Facebook page, which she was using as a public forum concerning
official mayoral business.
Ones to Watch Since: 2021
Recognized for: Personal Injury Litigation and Product Liability Litigation
Pedram Esfandiary is a Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman attorney who
concentrates his practice on mass tort litigation, class actions, consumer
fraud, and police misconduct cases.
He was an integral part of the trials teams in the first three Monsanto
Roundup trials, which culminated in jury verdicts worth more than $2.4
billion combined. In recognition of his outstanding legal work in the
Monsanto litigation, Pedram was selected to Law360’s Rising Stars
Top 40 Under 40 list for 2019, which recognizes attorneys whose legal
accomplishments transcend their age, and Southern California’s Super
Lawyers® – Rising Stars, 2019.
Pedram was among the first lawyers in the country to pursue
toxic baby food lawsuits against several leading manufacturers. He represents families throughout
the nation who allege baby food manufacturers failed to warn consumers
of the dangerously high levels of toxic heavy metals in their products
and that these toxic metals, including arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury, caused
autism and/or
ADHD in their children.
Adam M. Foster | Best Lawyers – Ones to Watch
Ones to Watch Since: 2021
Recognized for: Mass Tort Litigation / Class Actions, Personal Injury Litigation, and
Product Liability Litigation
Adam M. Foster is a Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman attorney who focuses
his practice on class actions and mass tort litigation. He works on a
variety of cases at the firm with a major focus on the firm’s Zantac
litigation.
Over the last few years, Adam has earned recognition for his exemplary
legal work from Super Lawyers®, the National Trial Lawyers, and Best
Lawyers®.
Helen E. Tokar | Best Lawyers – Ones to Watch
Ones to Watch Since: 2021
Recognized for: Mass Tort Litigation / Class Actions, Personal Injury Litigation, and
Product Liability Litigation
Helen E. Tokar is a Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman attorney that focuses
her practice on the firm’s Zantac cancer litigation.
Before joining Baum Hedlund, Helen gained considerable experience handling
cases across a wide variety of practice areas. During this time, she was
responsible for a significant amount of personal injury cases handling
everything from litigating, writing demands, conducting discovery and
depositions, preparing clients for deposition and trial, handling mediations
and settlement discussions, negotiating with insurance companies, and
supervising case managers. Throughout her career, Helen has made many
court appearances, including successfully serving as second chair in a
jury trial for a personal injury case.
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Clay Robbins III
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