Bio

I. Overview

Mr. Kaufman has 40 years intensive civil litigation experience in defense of liability claims following three years as a Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles County. He has served as lead counsel in over 125 jury trials and nearly 150 appellate matters (including briefing and arguing such landmark cases as Brown v. Superior Court and Jolly v. Abbott Laboratories, et al., both decided by the California Supreme Court in 1988), as well as Hegyes v. George (California Court of Appeal, 1991). As a member of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel, he has delivered seminars on trial advocacy, extra-contractual insurance disputes, and opposing requests for awards of attorney fees, and serves on their Trial Masters Committee. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Southern California Defense Counsel, and chairs its Substantive Law Committee on representation of Public Entities. A member of the American Board of Trial Advocates for many years, Mr. Kaufman has been honored in multiple years by SuperLawyers Magazine, Orange Coast Magazine, and Los Angeles Magazine by being named to their listings of Top Attorneys in Southern California (aka “SuperLawyers”) in the area of civil litigation, and has been designated as one of the top attorneys in the Southern California region by the American Registry.

In 2018, Mr. Kaufman was named as one of the “Nation’s Top Attorney Fee Experts” by the National Association of Legal Fee Analysis, which specializes in auditing reasonableness of attorney fees and legal billing.

II. Professional Experience

Currently, Mr. Kaufman is Senior Trial Counsel for the firm of Woodruff, Spradlin & Smart (“WSS”), which specializes in representation of public entities, both in litigation and trial and in transactional matters. Mr. Kaufman also maintains an insurance defense practice and often is retained by parties in lawsuits as an expert witness in the area of reasonableness of attorney fee requests. While at WSS, he has handled matters including personal injury (ranging from minor trip and falls to serious injury and death cases), contractual disputes, land use and zoning, violations of Government Code section 1090, ADA, FHA and FEHA compliance, and civil rights matters. These matters include litigation of police use of force issues and issues concerning zoning of sober living and assisted living facilities.

From 1975 – 1978, after having previously served as a law clerk for 18 months, he served as a Deputy District Attorney for the County of Los Angeles, before going in to civil practice.

In 1979, he joined the firm of Haight, Brown & Bonesteel, then known as Haight, Dickson, Brown, Bonesteel & Rigg. From 1979-1982, he served as a second senior member of a 12-attorney mass litigation team representing a self-insured target defendant in over 3,000 suits, winning the first defense jury verdict in an asbestos personal injury case in the state of California. From 1982-1985, and from 1989-2000, he gained further experience in defending litigation for self-insured major industrial and pharmaceutical clients, including business, commercial, and general liability litigation. During that period, he also began consulting as an expert for insurers regarding claims for attorneys’ fees from adverse counsel, both as to the form, reasonableness, and necessity of those bills, and has since continued to build that area of expert consultation, in which he is now a certified expert by the National Association of Legal Fee Auditing. From 1985-1989, he specialized in appellate law. By the year 2000, he was a senior partner in the Haight firm.

In 2001, along with two former partners in the Haight firm, he joined the law firm of Brown, Brown & Klass, where he remained as a partner from that time until 2013, continuing to litigate and try major cases (about 90% of the time for the defense). Clients included insurers, corporations, and individuals. During this period, he also represented the cities of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica in personal injury actions, and began to be retained by governmental entities in federal court matters as an expert in attorney fees and ethical and reasonable billing practices. While at Brown, Brown & Klass, he continued to amass litigation and trial experience in a wide variety of cases, including personal injury, contractual and commercial disputes, premises liability claims, and construction defects.

The majority of the balance of his work has been in the areas of product liability and major personal injury defense (including bodily injury allegedly arising from DES, Reyes Syndrome, Bendectin, and asbestos), and insurance law (“Bad Faith”) litigation, primarily representing defendants. This latter experience included being the senior trial attorney on a team representing a target insurer in bad faith cases arising out of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake in Southern California. His trial experience has also included litigation of a wide variety of other types of claims, including use of force by peace officers, zoning issues, ADA, FHA, and FEHA issues, serious auto accidents,

III. Military Service

Mr. Kaufman served as an officer in the Military Police Corps. in the United States Army Reserve (Active) from 1972-1979, and continued in the Stand-by Reserve until 2000.

IV. Current and Past Professional Affiliations

Admitted to State Bar of California, 1975

Los Angeles and Orange County Bar Associations

United States District Court, Central, Southern, and Eastern Districts of California

United States Tax Court

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

United States Supreme Court

National Association of Legal Fee Auditing

American Board of Trial Advocates

Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel

Association of Southern California Defense Counsel

V. Education and Professional Activities

Mr. Kaufman received his B.A. in 1971 in International Relations from the University of Southern California, and also completing course work for a Pre-Med major. He received his J.D. in 1975 from UCLA School of Law. Mr. Kaufman has been an instructor at the Jack Daniels Trial Academy of the American Board of Trial Advocates, and has given numerous seminars to various organizations.

Mr. Kaufman routinely serves as a Judge in national mock trial competitions, including the national finals, as well as various Moot Court competitions. He has served as a Judge Pro Tempore for the Los Angeles County Superior Court, and a mediator for the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District. He was a member, and chair for one year, of the Joint Committee of the California State Bar, California Judges’ Association, and Judicial Council which drafted the original version of the Uniform Rules of Court in California.

Mr. Kaufman is co-founder and was thrice President, of the L.A. West Inns of Court, as well as past-President of the Santa Monica Bar Association. He also served as a Trustee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association.

Mr. Kaufman has also taught trial tactics, legal research and writing, and remedies in law school, and business law and chemistry to college undergraduates.

IV. Personal Background

Mr. Kaufman was born in Burbank, California, and raised primarily in Palos Verdes Estates, California, at a time when, as he states, “there were more snakes and coyotes living there than people.” He has been married to the former Peggy McCormick (born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and raised in Torrance and Newport Beach, California) for 38 years. They have a son and three daughters, ranging in age from 26 to 35, and have five grandchildren ranging in age from 1 to 17. Bob and Peggy currently reside in south Orange County, California.

Robert L Kaufman

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