Arash Homampour

Sherman Oaks

Personal Injury

Arash Homampour opened the doors at The Homampour Law Firm 30 years ago to focus on plaintiff-side catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases. The results have backed up his practice of taking complex, challenging liability matters and obtaining large damage recoveries.

This year alone, his 12-lawyer shop has recovered more than $250 million for clients, many in confidential settlements, he said. In one case that settled in March while the jury was deliberating, Homampour obtained $6 million from the city of Glendale for the family of a woman struck by a car and killed in an unmarked crosswalk at night. He argued that the dangerous condition of the roadway made the city liable; the city denied it -- but then agreed to a deal to end the case. Nadimyan et al. v. Gjura et al., 19STCV29013 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Aug. 16, 2019).

"A lot of firms make choices based on their financial needs," Homampour said. "We have the financial freedom to pursue very risky cases where we see a righteous path to justice -- and the defense doesn't see it."

Homampour was born in Chicago after his parents emigrated from Iran in the 1960s. "My father was anti-Shah, and he wanted me to be educated in the U.S.," he said. "We grew up very poor, and I wanted a profession with a good income. We moved to L.A. when 'L.A. Law' was on TV, and I was attracted to the glamorous world of lawyers and the law. But my career has been even better."

He's currently preparing for oral argument in an appeal of the $60.44 million he won last year from jurors for a woman and her family after she suffered permanent, irreversible brain damage from a ruptured brain aneurysm in her hotel room. When the hotel failed to deal effectively with a welfare check request by her husband at home, a "negligent undertaking" theory persuaded the jury the hotel was liable. With interest compounding while the appeal proceeds, the potential recovery has risen to nearly $100 million, Homampour said.

The verdict, achieved by Homampour and the originator of the case, Matthew B.F. Biren of Biren Law Group, was a Daily Journal Top Verdict of 2022. O'Malley et al. v. Diamond Resorts International, 30-2015-00771021-CU-PO-NJC (Orange Co. Super. Ct., filed Feb. 10, 2015).

"This was a perfect case to illustrate how the defense myopically and incorrectly thought it could not lose," Homampour said. "They tried to blame the victim and her husband and her attorneys, and they lost spectacularly."

--John Roemer