Christopher Bulone 

Christopher Bulone takes his job so seriously that he refuses to call it a job.

“In order to be at a distinguished place in this profession, you have to look at it as not a job or a career or a profession, but much more than that — as a cause, a purpose,” he said. “When I look at being a plaintiff trial lawyer, I feel like we do one of the most important functions that there is, and it’s so important to me that I do it as well as I possibly can.”

“I get to work on cases where there is a really clear injustice, where somebody is catastrophically injured in a tragedy, and on the other side of that tragedy, is always a corporation … that doesn’t care that they perpetrated the tragedy, that doesn’t want to make it right and will stop at nothing to avoid helping the person whose life they ruined,” he continued. “The only thing between that victim and the most powerful and ruthless entities in the world is a trial lawyer and their determination and dedication to that cause.”

An example of this dedication occurred in late 2021 with a headline-grabbing jury trial verdict of more than $72.6 million in Greene v. Driz et al. Bulone represented two siblings who acted as good Samaritans when they sought to halt the beating of a TMZ photographer outside of West Hollywood’s Nice Guy restaurant. They were then brutally attacked by the defendants, who beat them past unconsciousness.

“I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish here with some historic verdicts,” he said. “I think that $72.6 million verdict is one of the largest ever for largely post traumatic stress disorder type damages.”

Bulone handled and tried the case of Eric Murillo v. U-Haul with Gary Dordick in 2022, resulting in 42.75 million dollars.

He set another record in Contra Costa County when he secured a jury verdict of more than $5.1 million for a mild traumatic brain injury in the case of Laura Guillen Flores v. Zahoor Ahmad dba American Cab Co. The trial judge saw insufficient evidence to support the verdict and overturned it as “excessive.”

“I can tell you that a lot of people’s jaws have hit the floor when they’ve heard about what happened after the verdict,” Bulone said. “I think it kind of shocks people’s sensibilities and belief in the jury system … but the case is on appeal.”

—Kathryn Stelmach Artuso