Deborah Chang

Trials & Litigation

El Segundo

Deborah Chang is a powerhouse consumer attorney who runs her own firm, Chang Klein LLP, and is one of six prominent female tort attorneys from around the U.S. who join forces in their Athea Trial Lawyers LLP.

Before founding those firms, she spent 15 years as of counsel at the personal injury boutique now known as Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP. Her practices focuses on wrongful death, products liability and sexual assault cases.

Chang said her distaste for the world of medicine set her on a separate career path in a family of physicians who emigrated from South Korea. "I hated science, and that was such a shock to my parents," she said. "I was the black sheep because I went to law school."

Her success in major wrongful death cases and personal injury matters has brought awards: in 2023 she was recognized as the consumer attorney of the year and she won the Marvin E. Lewis Award, both from the Consumer Attorneys of California.

Her top result last year was an elder neglect and wrongful death case in which a defendant hospital settled for $30.5 million amid trial. "We were eons apart on a settlement amount. They said they'd never paid more than a million, but on Friday, the jury asked about punitive damages and on Monday the defense agreed to $30.5 million," Chang said.

The patient was a 79-year-old man receiving treatment for a stroke who acquired in-hospital injuries, infections and complications that led to his death. "It was a long, hard trial against a powerful defendant," Chang said.

It was the largest wrongful death settlement in California in 2023. As part of the deal, the names of the parties are confidential. Doe v. Roe Hospital, 56-2019-00525298-CU-MM-VTA (Ventura Co. Super. Ct., filed Feb. 22, 2019).

Chang settled for $6.1 million in a wrongful death case against San Diego police for the father whose daughter and granddaughter died in a head-on car crash. The other driver, who also died, was a man suffering from mania and schizophrenia who had threatened to drive at high speed on the wrong side of the road and did so. Prior to his fatal trip police were summoned to his home but -- despite pleas from the man's psychiatrist -- left without observing or speaking to him. Pizarro v. City of San Diego et al., 37-2019-0039360-CU-PA-CTL (S. Diego Co. Super. Ct., filed July 29, 2019).

"We settled just before trial at a court-ordered mediation," Chang said. She described relatives from both families meeting during that proceeding and embracing amid sobs and forgiveness. "This was a case that really touched my heart," she said.

-- John Roemer