Eric J. Dubin

Irvine

Civil Rights & Wrongful Death

Eric J. Dubin founded his Dubin Law Firm in 1992. He'd done insurance defense work for a few years, but his career took a swerve when he attended Gerry Spence's storied trial practice school.

"He wouldn't train me unless I was a plaintiffs' lawyer, so I jumped ship and went off on my own," Dubin said.

He achieved headline-grabbing success in 2005 when he won a $30 million jury verdict for the children of Robert Blake in a wrongful death civil suit following the actor's criminal trial acquittal for their mother's murder.

The wins have kept coming, chiefly in civil rights and police misconduct litigation. These days, Dubin often tries cases with Annee Della Donna, who maintains her own solo shop in Laguna Beach. The two co-founded Innocence OC in conjunction with the UC Irvine School of Law.

"We keep it small and do the cases that speak to us," Dubin said. "Our emphasis has been on civil rights matters for the last few years."

Dubin obtained a $24 million settlement from state officials for relatives of a man who died when California Highway Patrol officers compressed his neck during an arrest that was eerily similar to that of George Floyd in Minnesota. I.M. v. State of California, 2:20-cv-11174 (C.D. Cal., filed Dec. 9, 2020)

And he and Della Donna achieved a first this year when they persuaded a Los Angeles judge to declare factually innocent two Black men who'd spent nearly 17 years in prison for attempted murder. In 2020, a state appellate panel vacated the convictions and freed them.

In 2022, the Legislature amended the Penal Code to permit factual innocence proceedings; Dubin and Della Donna, using the law for the first time, represented the men at a trial in which a judge ruled they were factually innocent. The hearing included a confession by another man who is serving a life sentence for murder in an unrelated case. People of the State of California v. Rayford and Glass, MA028053 (L.A. Super. Ct., op. filed Apr. 29, 2023).

"It was a long crawl and the state didn't give an inch, didn't even shake our hands when it was over," Dubin said. "The proceeding was interesting because no one really knew what the ground rules were. At the end, the prosecutor said he couldn't refile the charges and we moved to dismiss and the judge said granted and it was over."

Dubin's client, Dupree Glass, and the other man, Juan M. Rayford, are now each entitled to $140 for each day served in prison or nearly $1 million.

But Dubin isn't through. "We'll be filing a wrongful prosecution action next," he said.

--John Roemer