Experienced trial specialist Donald W. Carlson left the big firm nest to head a boutique practice in San Francisco defending insurers, manufacturers and business people.
Donald W. Carlson dreamt of starting his own law firm with a few of his closest friends, of the flexibility and focus he could achieve in a small practice devoted largely to trial work. After a series of high-profile victories in the late 1990's Carlson realized his dream in February by founding the law firm of Carlson, Calladine & Peterson with two fellow senior partners from Long and Levit. So far, Carlson feels pleased with his fledgling enterprise.
"It's going well," he said, " The early returns are good. We've received a lot of positive feedback from clients, colleagues and others."
Carlson has long measured his success in terms of positive feedback. A longtime advocate of jury research in trial preparation, Carlson conducts juror interviews and/or mock juries in almost every case he tries. Jury consultant David B. Graeven, Ph.D., has worked with Carlson for 12 years in mock juries and post-trial interviews of jurors.
According to Graeven, jurors and mock jurors consistently report that Carlson is "excellent," they respond particularly will to his manner of examining witnesses and his closing arguments. Jurors interviewed by Graeven after a recent re-trial praised Carlson's skill and manner.
According to Graeven, one juror reported that during the cross-examination, Carlson was "like a surgeonÉand was amazing to me."
Another described his conduct during witness examination as "sensitiveÉjust with his tone, without being insulting, he would shrink the value of the witness."
Graeven reports that juror comments in post-trial interviews also show that they have been persuaded by the themes that Carlson advanced at trial.
Graeven describes Carlson as "a very clear communicator," "very methodical," and someone who "uses timing superbly."
"He's an intense person," Graeven says. "When he is involved in a case. He's very focused. He doesn't allow himself to be distractedÉthe other thing is that he is not afraid to be brief, and I think that is very courageous."
Graeven finds that working with Carlson "is very enjoyable because he always tries to assemble the themes of the case, and he struggles with these themes. You spend a lot of time talking about how to frame the issues, and how to understand the case, so it's always sort of fun to watch him get it, get the themes and the energy that that brings to preparing the case for trial."
Indeed, Carlson has thrived on the energy that accompanies trial work for as long as he can remember. Growing up in San Diego in the 1950's and 1960's, watching lawyer shows like The Defenders on television, Carlson knew since his youth that he wanted to be a trial lawyer. Undergraduate college took him as far north as Santa Barbara, but Carlson had never even visited San Francisco when he moved to the city in 1974 to attend the University of California Hastings College of the Law. After graduating law school in 1977, Carlson started working at Long and Levit. Within two months of his hire Carlson was called upon to prepare a witness for trial in a subrogation case.
"My appetite was whetted," Carlson recalls. Within a year, he conducted and won his first trial, an insurance bad faith case in San Francisco.
"After that, I took all the trial courses I could, read as many books as I could, and listened to tapes," he says.
In his 22 years as an attorney, Carlson has litigated 25 civil trials and obtained defense verdicts for his clients in more than 90 percent of them.
At Long and Levit, Carlson litigated primarily insurance, professional liability and products liability cases, although he developed a reputation in the 1980's for defending professionals against the claims of sexual harassment, molestation and sexual fraud, Carlson has appeared on "Larry King Lice," CBS Morning News" and the "Phil Donahue Show" to discuss this type of litigation
Today, Carlson continues to litigate insurance bad faith, products liability and legal malpractice cases from the San Francisco office of his new firm. In addition to the other named partners, Guy Calladine and Robert Peterson, with whom Carlson worked at Long and Levit for more than 18 years. Carlson 's new firm consists of three other partners and five associates, also from Long and Levit. Their practice focuses exclusively on litigation and trials of complex, high-exposure insurance and business litigation, including bad faith, subrogation, professional liability, partnership disputes and products liability.
In Carlson's view, the firm is a trial specialty boutique. The named partners all have extensive trial experience, and trial experience will be required as a condition for partnership. The firm intends to remain small, with a maximum of 11-20 attorneys "to preserve the collegiality, teamwork and efficiency." ("Members on the move," San Francisco Attorney, February/March 2000, Page 56.) Its members will continue to work with other attorneys for whom trial is not a specialty and who would therefore benefit from retaining, associating in, or consulting with Carlson's firm for trial and witness preparation and trial advocacy
Carlson's qualifications as a skilled, experienced trial lawyer can hardly be questioned. Prior to the defense verdict he obtained in 1999 re-trial of the Stephan Enterprises (Stephan Enterprises Inc. v. Gold Cities Insurance Agency (Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. BC 067855), Carlson achieved two highly publicized victories in 1998 in the emotionally wrought cases of Porter v. Laci Le Beau Corp.,531430-7 (San Francisco Sup. Ct., April 21, 1998) and Lapin v. lockshin, 965386 (San Francisco Sup. Ct., April 21, 1998)
The Porter case arose out of Mary Jane Porter's unexpected death in 1994. Porter's family brought a wrongful death action against the manufacturer of a diet product called Super Dieter's Tea, alleging that the tea contained ingredients that leached the body of heart-regulating electrolytes, such as potassium, the consumption of which could cause cardiac arrest. Porter had been consuming the tea prior to her fatal cardiac arrest. Plaintiffs alleged that the manufacturer had a duty to warn about this risk, and their failure to do so caused Porter's death.
Carlson defended the tea company. At trial, he introduced evidence that in addition to consuming the team the defendant also took diuretic pills that she bought in Mexico; she suffered from gastrointestinal conditions that the testifying medical experts agreed could not have been caused by the tea; and she was given incompetent care in the emergency room two days before her death. He argued the tea did not cause Porter's death. The jury returned a defense verdict, finding the product contained a "failure to warn" defect, but the defect did not cause Porter's death.
A more satisfying triumph was Carlson's success in the Lapin case. Defendant Larry Lockshin, a plaintiff's attorney, represented Patrick Lapin in a 1993 case against Lapin's former employer, Southern Pacific, the respect to railroad inhalation injuries plaintiff sustained during the course of his employment. The case was tried twice. In the first case, Lockshin moved for a mistrial because he felt that the Judge was admitting prejudicial and irrelevant evidence.
In the re-trial, Lockshin obtained a $1.6 million verdict for his client. Nevertheless, Lapin terminated Lockshin in February 1994 and declared the retainer, which authorized Lockshin to take $800,000 in attorney's fees based on the $1.6 million verdict, was void and unconscionable. ("No Malpractice, Jury says, In Handling of Long Case," San Francisco Daily Journal, April 30, 1998, Pages 1-2.)
Carlson defended Lockshin in the ensuing malpractice case and also represented him in his cross-complaint for fraud and attorney's fees. Carlson retained Retired California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reyoso as an expert to testify that Lockshin had not violated any legal ethics or standards of care. Carlson's closing argument was so moving that "several of the men jurors actually cried during the closing argument," Carlson recalls. Not only did the jury exonerate Lockshin with regard to the breach of fiduciary duty and malpractice claims, they awarded him close to $1million on his cross-claim.
Cases like Porter and Lapin illustrate what Carlson enjoys about defense work. "It's a real challenge to represent clients that aren't initially viewed with any kind of sympathy or empathy and then, through the trial process, prevail at trial," he says. Because Carlson recognizes the difficulty that a jury faces in having to turn away an injured person without money, he considers it his duty "to provide them with enough facts to give them the ability to do what many of them don't think they will be able to do when the trial begins - to give them the reason and rationale to overcome their emotions," he says.
Carlson's partner, Guy Calladine, believes that Carlson achieves that goal and more. "He's a great, great lawyer," Calladine says, "He is extremely bright, he's very personable, he's very hard-working, he doesn't get flustered and he thinks exceptionally well on his feet. Put all those things together, and it's an unbelievable package. Anybody that watches him is just amazed."
Carlson's trial skills are admired not only by his colleagues but also by opposing counsel. Jerry Wilhelm, a sole practitioner in Santa Rosa, opposed Carlson in an insurance bad faith case, which culminated in "a very long trial" last year. Wilhelm stated that Carlson could be soft-spoken or aggressive depending on the situation, and that he was persuasive with the Jury.
"He is a formidable adversary," says Wilhelm, "and it was fun to match wits with him."
Carlson has also contributed to the legal community as an educator and author. He has written numerous articles and made numerous presentations primarily on the topics of discovery and insurance litigation. Carlson enjoys golfing, swimming and yoga. He also spends as much time as he can with his family. Including annual trips to visit his parents in San Diego and his wife's parents in Britain. His two daughters, ages 5 and 8, are both athletes and keep Carlson busy with a variety of sporting events and practices.