Bio

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Thomas Madruga is a Senior Partner with Olivarez Madruga Lemieux O’Neill. Mr. Madruga oversees the firm’s litigation practice. His litigation experience includes a very broad range of clients and issues and provides a unique ability to proactively counsel and advise private and public clients away from costly litigation. Mr. Madruga has resolved cases through mediation, arbitration, dispositive motions, jury trials and appeals on behalf of clients in labor and employment matters, catastrophic injury matters, product liability, excessive force and police practices, premises liability, discrimination claims, civil rights violations, asbestos exposures, legal malpractice, general liability, construction law, wage and hour class actions, administrative disciplinary matters and appeals and insurance law.

Mr. Madruga also serves as general counsel to several school districts and municipalities and routinely provides legal advice on the Brown Act, administrative and disciplinary personnel matters, grievances, contract and labor negotiations, and representation before the federal state and regulatory agencies, including the Department of Fair Employment and Housing and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

PUBLICATIONS

Police Officers On Trial: “Protect and Serve” or “Protect and Service”, California Litigation Journal, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2018

Aviation: The Doctrine of Superseding Cause: When Can It Be Used To Escape Liability, Skywritings, the Defense Research Institute (Fall, 2008)

When A Lawyer Commits Malpractice During the Course of Legal Representation, When Is the Statute of Limitations Tolled?

Defending the Trending Wage and Hour Class Action

PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS AND ASSOCIATIONS

“AV” Attorney rating – Martindale Hubbell – An “AV” rating is the “highest level of legal ability” and “very high adherence to professional standards of conduct, ethics, reliability and diligence.” The rating is the product of review and evaluation by lawyers and judges with personal knowledge of the skills, ability and standards of the individual.

Selected as a California “Super Lawyer”, 2007-2020, by the publications of Law and Politics Magazine and the Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine. Selections for Super Lawyer are made only after significant peer review and survey of more than 65,000 practicing lawyers in Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

Guest Lecturer, Prose Mediation Course, Loyola Law School for Litigation

Approved MCLE Provider for California State Bar

Trial skills recognized in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, April 30 and July 16, 1999 in the Litigator Profile for a trial result of a wrongful death case involving the defective design of a fishing vessel.

Selected to Cambridge Who’s Who as attorney member; named Professional of the Year 2009-2010.

Advisory Board Member, Mychal’s Learning Center 2006 – present

Board of Directors Member, Mychal’s Learning Center 2002-2005

American Bar Association

Los Angeles County Bar Association, Member

EDUCATION

University of Notre Dame Law School, J.D., 1992

University of California, Santa Barbara, B.A., Psychology, 1987

BAR AND COURT ADMISSIONS

State Bar of California (1992)

District of Columbia Bar (1994)

United States District Court, Central, Northern, Southern Districts of California

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal

Thomas M. Madruga

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