Robert A. Odell 

Robert A. Odell has a trick he uses when selecting a jury in an employment lawsuit. Even though he only represents plaintiffs, he talks to the jury as if he were a defense attorney.

“Who here agrees with me that nowadays there’s too many lawsuits?” he asks. He waves his hand in the air to make the potential jurors feel comfortable joining in.

His objective “is to really help those jurors who may be against you to essentially tell you who they are so you can at least make an informed decision to deselect them,” he said.

Now, colleagues sometimes bring him on in their trials to assist with jury selection or even to act as lead trial counsel. He did that in June in a wrongful termination trial against Disney in Orange County. Gillies v. Walt Disney Parks and Resorts U.S., Inc., 30-2020-01140172 (O.C. Super. Ct., filed May26, 2020).

In fact, Odell said his goal for his practice is to serve as trial counsel by other attorneys in employment cases. Currently, that’s true of about half the matters he is working on.

His career began rather spectacularly in November 2014 when he and a colleague won a $1.3 million jury verdict in a disability discrimination and retaliation trial. He’d been practicing for only about 18 months. Mayo v. Community Development Commission of the County of Los Angeles, BC486184 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed July 7, 2012).

“That was an earth-changing experience for me,” Odell said. “I had no previous trial experience” beyond mock trial in law school.

Then, two and a half years later, he and the same partner won a $25 million jury verdict in a wrongful termination and whistleblower retaliation lawsuit. The $22.4 million punitive damages award was later reduced to $2.7 million. Babyak v. Cardiovascular Systems, Inc. BC601259 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Nov. 16, 2015).

“That was a great trial, a really fun trial,” Odell said. Since then, he has attracted enough other whistleblower cases to comprise about half his caseload. “I know them well. And most defense counsel can see from the record that I am willing to go to trial on some of those cases.”

As a result, he said, many of his cases settle.

But he is scheduled to go to trial in September representing a female database administrator for a financial company who discovered that she was being paid less than male counterparts with less experience and seniority. Odell said the company told her there were reasons for the discrepancies but refused to explain them. Then, it fired her. Hua v. Western Asset Management Co. LLC, 19STCV31305 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 3, 2019).

Odell said the trial could prove to be “the biggest case I will try in my career. I’m getting very excited for that.”

— Don DeBenedictis