Ibiere Seck

Personal Injury

Los Angeles

In 2019, Ibiere N. Seck opened the doors to her solo plaintiff-side personal injury shop, Seck Law P.C. "But I'm as busy as someone with a firm of 200 lawyers," she laughed. "I have the good fortune to get to try cases modern style, without a staff or anything. I spend the majority of my time in trial, trying high-value cases with other lawyers."

Seck works as co-counsel with members of the Southern California plaintiff bar such as R. Rex Parris and Khail A. Parris of PARRIS Law Firm, Minh T. Nguyen of Nguyen Theam Lawyers LLP and Robert T. Simon of the Simon Law Group.

"The importance of a strong plaintiff bar is critical," said Seck, who is the first Black woman to serve as president of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles. Before starting Seck Law, she spent a decade at The Cochran Firm.

Seck, who was raised in Seattle, is the daughter of a mother descended from southern sharecroppers who wanted a lawyer's life for her daughter and a father whose family in Senegal carried on the tradition of Griots, tellers of legendary stories.

A strong influence was Judge Judith Hightower of Seattle, a pioneering Black jurist who encouraged and mentored Seck and came to Los Angeles to swear her in as CAALA president.

Among Seck's specialties is telling the stories of the partners of plaintiffs who have suffered catastrophic injuries. Loss of consortium claims is a niche practice that Seck says can broaden and deepen a jury's understanding of a case's impact beyond that of the injured lead plaintiff.

In her first big case after going solo, she won $4 million for Christina Bejar, the spouse of on-duty CHP motorcycle officer Eric Bejar, who was rear-ended and permanently injured by a driver while conducting a traffic stop. The combined award totaled $49.64 million. Eric Bejar was represented by R. Rex Parris. Bejar et al. v. Lopez, BC675339 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 8, 2017).

"I get to tell the story of people often overlooked, people who spend every day at home with their badly injured spouse," Seck said. "The way my co-counsel and I handle these loss of consortium claims really can amplify verdicts."

The Bejar verdict, in 2021, brought in a lot of business, Seck said. Last year, in a case she did with Khail Parris, the combined verdict was $8.9 million for a man seriously injured in a head-on collision with a drunken driver. The wife got $25,000 for her loss of consortium claim. Montez et al. v. Perez et al., MC027758 (LA. Super. Ct., filed May 10, 2018).

"The wife got a low verdict, but we heard in feedback from jurors that her voice in the courtroom impacted the larger amount they gave her husband," Seck said. "The jury saw the accident's devastating impact on their lives."

-- John Roemer