Mahru Madjidi 

Mahru Madjidi is a shareholder at the employment law boutique Shegerian & Associates, where she focuses on plaintiff-side wrongful termination, sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation and wage and hour cases. Since 2021, she recovered more than $200 million for clients.

She joined the firm in 2017. Madjidi said she always wanted to be a lawyer, based on her view of her grandfather, who had a law degree in Iran, and her father, who emigrated with her mother to the U.S. before the 1979 revolution and who is now dean of the Graduate School of Education and Psychology at Pepperdine University.

"I used to sit on those grassy hills at the Malibu campus looking at the law school," Madjidi recalled. "Lawyers seemed like they had the answers to everything."

In early September, Madjidi was near the end of a lengthy trial on behalf of a client with defamation and failure to accommodate claims. "We're in week eight and the closing arguments are next week," she said. "I truly enjoy being in trial and getting to use all the tools to see the case through. This is one of my longer ones."

In March, Madjidi and firm founder Carney R. Shegerian persuaded jurors to award their truck driver client $5.45 million on a claim that his termination from a shipping company was retaliation for making health and safety complaints. Galvan v. United Parcel Service Inc. et al., BC703891 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Apr. 25, 2018).

"It was a complex case because there was a NLRB and labor union component," Madjidi said. "But it came down to the witnesses -- our client was so believable and theirs were so not." Further complicating matters was fresh discovery material that came up mid-trial, leading to sanctions against the defense and the necessity for new depositions while the trial was in progress. "We were adapting on the go," she said.

In 2021, Madjidi, Shegerian and colleagues achieved a $155.4 million verdict for an in-house lawyer at an insurance company. The client was a senior vice president in charge of claims litigation when the company fired him because he was about to testify for the plaintiffs in a class action over pay for his female lawyer colleagues. Rudnicki v. Farmers Insurance Exchange, Farmers Group Inc., BC630158 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Aug. 10, 2016).

It was a Daily Journal Top Verdict. "I examined the plaintiff's wife. She was our emotional distress witness," Madjidi said. "She said, 'I just want my family back,' and it was so raw and powerful." Of the big award, $150 million was for punitive damages.

--John Roemer