MARK B. WILSON

With more than 30 years of legal experience, Mark B. Wilson of Klein & Wilson is a seasoned veteran with an established track record that has awarded him recognition by his peers as a top person in the legal malpractice field.

“I represent mostly former clients against their lawyers, and then I act as an expert witness in legal malpractice cases,” Wilson explained. “There are also lawyers and law firms that I provide advice to … I have a broad range on this practice.”

Wilson has represented clients in both federal and state courts, seeing million-dollar victories in cases involving business litigation, real estate, partnership disputes and legal malpractice. In 2019, he received the Orange County Trial Lawyers Association Trial Lawyer of the Year award for legal malpractice. He currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Orange County Chapter of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers.

“The way to succeed in these cases is to try and have the jury and judges put themselves in the position of what it would be like to be a client,” Wilson said. “And then you get them to think about what they would expect from their lawyer. Because if you can personalize it, you’re going to get a better result.”

Recently, Wilson served as lead counsel in a case that saw his client prevail and recover attorneys’ fees and costs. The clients alleged the law firm committed malpractice and wasn’t entitled to a fee following a dispute of a settlement that involved a confidentiality provision, which was violated by the law firm in a proceeding binding arbitration demand. “How does a law firm talk about the settlement and not violate the confidentiality provision? The answer is ‘there is no way,’” Wilson explained.

This led Wilson and his team to file a separate action against the attorneys for breach of the confidential settlement agreement. “I was able to persuade the powers that be that my arbitration against the law firm for violating the confidentiality provision should go first. And I won. I persuaded the arbitrator that the law firm violated the confidentiality provision by filing a demand for arbitration that disclosed the terms of the settlement agreement. It was a big win for the client … the malpractice case is still going. I’m not sure where that’s going to go yet, but I was able to leapfrog the lawyers’ fee dispute claims.”

Wilson is currently serving as lead counsel on a case in which he’s representing plaintiffs that allege the defendants mishandled a series of cases, allegedly causing the plaintiffs to suffer damages of $3.1 million. “One of the key problems that lawyers are finding themselves in is that they’re not warning clients,” he said. “They’re giving advice, but failing to warn about all of the different strategies that the client might be wanting to pursue.”

Wilson credits a large portion of his sustained success to his ability to tell stories through pictures and interactive demonstrative evidence. “I create storyboards and timelines that are very interesting to look at, but also interactive,” he explained.

“Some of these cases can be dry. The way to make it interesting is to have interesting visuals to follow.”

– Devon Belcher