Deborah S. Chang

A plaintiffs’ lawyer, Chang secured many multimillion-dollar verdicts in serious death and injury cases, including some that changed the law. This month, she’ll become president of Consumer Attorneys of California.

Earlier this year, she co-founded Athena Trial Lawyers, a virtual law firm, with five other powerhouse women tort attorneys from around the country.

“We collected really the top women trial lawyers in the country who’ve all won verdicts over $100 million to show that women can handle really important cases and get huge, record-setting verdicts,” said Chang, who is the firm’s managing partner.

Chang wanted to launch Athea because she sees women disappearing from practice and the courtroom. More women go to law school than men, she said, but many don’t stay. “You go out seven years, they’re gone. They hate it or they’re not making equity partner.”

Athea also will help fund or manage cases with other women lawyers. “Our whole goal is to inspire and motivate women.”

That also will be Chang’s platform as president of CAOC. “In fact, our whole convention is going to be a tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and to women empowering women,” she said.

Her new firm’s early cases involve women killed in shocking accidents. In the first, Chang represents the family of three women crushed in a landslide at a beach in Encinitas when the cliff above them suddenly collapsed. The lawsuit blames the state, the city and two homeowner groups for not properly protecting the urbanized bluffs from erosion. Davis v. California, 37-2020-00030315 (S.D. Super. Ct., filed Aug. 25, 2020).

In the second, Athea will be filing a claim with the federal government for the widower of Esther Nakajjigo, who was Uganda’s ambassador to women and girls. Chang said the young activist died as she and her husband were visiting Arches National Park in Utah when a poorly secured entrance gate crashed into their car. Before her death, Nakajjigo started a hospital and was working with a large refugee camp in her country, Chang said. “She was 25, and she changed the world.”

— Don DeBenedictis