Christine D. Spagnoli

Spagnoli said she gravitated toward a career in representing plaintiffs in personal injury, wrongful death, product liability and defective product cases because of the opportunity to make a difference.

Representing clients who have been catastrophically injured or who have lost a loved one is rewarding, she said, because of her ability to help clients get the resources they need, while at the same time helping to get dangerous products off the market.

“You can help your client, but also help society and that’s a rewarding thing to do,” she added.

Spagnoli is a veteran advocate for consumer safety specializing in automobile defect cases and has obtained many multimillion-dollar verdicts over the course of her career. She also received prominent accolades, such as Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Consumer Attorneys of Los Angeles. In 2012, she became the first woman to receive that honor.

Myers v. Payne, BC716340 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Aug. 2, 2018), involving an admitted liability crash, is one of her recent matters. In the case, pending due to negotiations among the plaintiffs, Spagnoli represents a plaintiff who was seriously injured in the crash on Pacific Coast Highway that involved multiple vehicles.

She is also representing a plaintiff in a recently filed class action involving a child booster seat that is alleged to have a defect that can cause serious injury or death to children because of a design flaw in its harness mechanism, Margaret Stevens v. Britax Child Safety Inc., 2:20-cv-07373-MCS-AS ( C.D. Cal., Aug. 14, 2020).

In addition to her legal practice, Spagnoli has in recent months been an active part of efforts to help the courts in their reopening process in light of COVID through the working groups and advisory committees of the Judicial Council, the American Association for Justice, Consumer Attorneys of California and Consumer Attorneys of Los Angeles.

She is also on the Los Angeles Judicial Selection Advisory Committee, which she was appointed to by Gov. Gavin Newsom, and the Women Trial Lawyers Caucus, Rand Institute for Civil Justice Board of Advisors, Loyola Law School of Los Angeles Board of Directors and the Judicial Council’s Civil Jury Instructions Advisory Committee.

— Kamila Knaudt