Daniel S. Robinson

Looking back at his time as an assistant district attorney in New York City, Robinson said the jury pools there were not shy about scrutinizing a prosecutor's case.

"It really taught me how to build a case so that it was strong enough to survive not only a reasonable doubt but also a New York jury's reasonable doubt."

Back then he worked as a prosecutor, hunting down identity thieves and cyber criminals in one of the first identity theft units in the country.

"It was kind of a test unit," Robinson said. "The whole time, we kept thinking, 'Gosh it would be great if we could make it tougher for these criminals to obtain the data they have been able to get rather easily.'"

Still with a sense of duty to protect people's personal information, Robinson now secures record breaking settlements in civil data breach class-actions; oftentimes serving as plaintiff counsel to huge certified classes.

"I think it's just the reality of living in the modern world that there is just so much data," Robinson said. "It is incumbent on those who acquire data of their customers, of people who they have a relationship with, a transaction with, to safeguard that data."

In a certified class action alleging violations of the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act, St. Joseph Health System failed to maintain and secure health information of nearly 31,000 patients. Medical Information Cases, JCCP 4716 (O.C. Super. Ct., filed Dec 12, 2012)

"Patients had their information accidentally released by St. Josephs in a matter that made it not only accessible but acquirable by Google bots and other bots that constantly and continuously troll every website there is to capture information for search engines," Robinson said.

After he and his team at Robinson Calcagnie Inc. defeated a motion to dismiss by St. Joseph, the case settled only weeks before it was to go to trial. Robinson, serving as co-lead, secured payments of $242 for each class member -- a national record-breaking settlement per capita in a personal health information data breach class-action.

In May of this year, while serving as interim co-lead counsel, managing a plaintiff's steering committee of seven firms, Robinson secured a class action settlement with the credit agency Experian PLC's, over its 2015 data breach.

The class, made up of a reported 15 million customers, settled for a $22 million cash-award, as well as free credit-monitoring services with a retail value of $138 million. In Re: Data Breach Litigation, 15-CV01592 (C.D. Cal., filed Oct 2, 2015)

While he has found success in data breach litigation, Robinson fares quite well in personal injury and product liability cases as well. In 2011, he obtained a $14.5 million jury verdict for his client who was left paraplegic after his motorcycle slammed into an SUV.

Robinson presently serves as the secretary of the Orange County Bar Association, and is in line to be its president in 2022.

-- Blaise Scemama