Nicholas C. Rowley

2020 was supposed to be a terrible year for plaintiffs’ lawyers. But Nicholas C. Rowley said he had about 20 successful arbitration or mediation cases, many with eight figure settlements.

“With COVID, I’ve actually done ok despite not having jury trials,” said the trial attorney with Carpenter, Zuckerman & Rowley in Beverly Hills. “I’m used to having 10 jury trials a year. I didn’t try a case in 18 months, but it was good.”

Now that trial drought is ending. In April, Rowley was part of a team that won a $9.5 million verdict for the family of Zoe Rosenthal. A driver ran down and killed the Massachusetts adult literacy teacher while she was in a crosswalk in 2017. Tiffany Castillo Personal Representative for the Estate of Zoe Rosenthal et al vs. Davignon, 1879CV00247 (Hampden County Sup. Ct., filed March, 2018).

With courts opening back up, Rowley said he expects to see record verdicts in the next few years, and he noted that he “has a lot of trials stacked up” in the coming months.

“My attitude is the insurance companies actually have more money,” Rowley said. “Think about it. They didn’t stop collecting, but they have had way less to pay out. People weren’t on the road. … They already had more money than God, and now they have even more. The cost of settling has gone up.”

In the meantime, Rowley said he’s had more time to spend with this wife — Courtney E. Rowley is also a successful trial attorney — and 11 children, including an 18-month-old daughter. He’s been working on his fourth book, “Damages Evolving” with trial consultant David Ball.

He also teaches trial strategy, including through a series of videos he’s created on YouTube and for sale online. Rowley encourages plaintiffs’ attorneys to pursue a “less-is-more” approach with fast, hard-hitting cases instead of overwhelming juries with endless witnesses.

His hard-charging style hasn’t always won him friends. Speaking at the 2019 Consumer Attorneys of California convention in San Francisco, he criticized Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, also an attorney, for his support for the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, or MICRA. Rowley said he often calls out Democrats for allegedly being on the side of people, but not showing it through legislation.

Working with Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court, Rowley had planned to put an initiative on the 2020 ballot. The Fairness for Injured Plaintiffs Act, or FIPA, would remove MICRA’s 46-year-old limit on non-economic medical malpractice damages, raising the $250,000 cap to about $1.2 million, with annual increases to follow.

Rowley admitted he regrets dropping the idea because of the pandemic but promised FIPA would be on next year’s ballot.

“I believe the stars will align at the right time in 2022,” he said.

— Malcolm Maclachlan