Mike Arias

Los Angeles

Personal Injury, Sexual Assault & Harassment, Employment Law & Class Action

Mike Arias, the founding and managing partner of Arias Sanguinetti Wang & Torrijos LLP, launched the firm in 1984. He focuses on plaintiff-side personal injury, employment, sexual assault, environmental, elder abuse, mass tort and class action matters.

"We're growing. We've added departments and people," said Arias, who now has a 19-attorney roster. "When something devastating happens in your life, we want to right that wrong."

Last year, Mike Arias won a CLAY award for his work on the sex abuse scandal involving a USC gynecologist and some 710 victims. It netted a $852 million settlement. It was the largest-known settlement in a sexual abuse case in U.S. history and the largest-known personal injury settlement against a university. Payouts per plaintiff averaged $1.2 million. Jane Doe 3 et al. v. University of Southern California et al., BC715163 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed July 30, 2018).

"Now we have two new big ones," Arias said, naming racial harassment and discrimination claims by Black factory workers against Tesla, Inc. and another multi-plaintiff case involving scores of related complaints by youthful offenders in Los Angeles County juvenile detention camps who allege they were sexually abused and harassed.

"We have to make change happen," Arias said. "Even if you're so rich, you don't give a damn about what happens at your factory, you have to operate within the confines of the law." As for the juvenile detention cases, he added, "You read the intake forms and you see how these minors were taken advantage of -- with no systems in place to prevent that from happening." Jane BP1-B Doe et al. v. Doe 1 et al., 22STCV15961 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Aug. 11, 2022).

Among the outcomes he seeks: "We hope for a total overhaul of how these institutions are run."

In 2022, Arias and co-counsel settled for $38.5 million in a catastrophic personal injury suit in a state on the East Coast involving a student left a quadriplegic at a martial arts exhibition when another participant struck him in the spine or back of the head with an illegal move. The names of the parties are confidential.

Arias said he learned there were numerous acts of negligence by the staff of the educational institution involved. "We were ready to try this one when they recognized they were likely to be found liable for a lot more than the deal we made."

--John Roemer