A former politician who resumed practicing law after retiring from the legislature sued Mr. Ochrach’s client, Marty, for unpaid legal fees. On behalf of his client, Mr. Ochrach countersued the lawyer for legal malpractice. Why? The lawyer represented Marty in his corporate matters,
and the lawyer failed to properly advise Marty about a contract with one of his employees. The employee sued Marty claiming he was a 50% partner entitled to half of the profits of the company, and the employee won.  Marty claimed the employee was not a partner and, instead, was given a 10% profit sharing in the company. The reason the employee won, according to Mr. Ochrach, was that the lawyer failed to properly document the relationship with the employee.

Just before trial, Mr. Ochrach convinced the court to throw out the lawyer’s lawsuit against Marty. Then, the parties went to trial over Marty’s lawsuit for legal malpractice. The highlight of the trial was Mr. Ochrach’s cross-examination of the lawyer. Mr. Ochrach was able to show to the jury how simple it would have been for a competent lawyer to draft a simple contract that would have laid out the terms of the employee’s compensation, which would have defeated the employee’s claim that he was owed a percentage of profits of the company.

At the conclusion of trial, the jury awarded Mr. Ochrach’s client $2.8 million.

The plaintiff alleged a conspiracy to defraud her arising from transactions involving the sale of a ranch and Percheron horses. At trial, the plaintiff called defendant’s alleged co-conspirator to testify against Mr. Ochrach’s client. However, Mr. Ochrach had thoroughly investigated this witness and the plaintiff and, on cross-examination, impeached the witnesses almost every minute. In fact, after about 30 minutes of of cross-examination, the alleged co-conspirator — who was really a co-conspirator with the plaintiff — began pleading the 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination to every question. Mr. Ochrach had destroyed his credibility.

In the end, the judge entered a decision exonerating Mr. Ochrach’s client of any wrongdoing — a complete defense victory.

Shirley was married to her husband for 60 years before he passed away.  They owned their own business and had been pretty successful.  Because her husband handled all of the finances in their family, when her husband died, Shirley relied on her adult-son, Jay, to keep track of her finances.  That was a big mistake.

More than a decade later, Shirley passed away.  During the probate of her estate, Shirley’s daughter, Connie, became suspicious of Jay because he refused to allow them to sell what Jay claimed was Shirley’s sole asset, her home.  Connie hired our firm to move things forward.  However, during his investigation, we discovered that Jay appeared to have been embezzling from his mother.  Using written discovery and then taking Jay’s deposition (and also his accountant’s deposition), we established that Jay had stolen over $600,000 from his mother.  In fact, during her last years, Shirley was living meagerly on only her social security checks — not knowing that she had hundreds of thousands more.  Jay hid this money from her and then embezzled it.

The old saying, “Oh what a tangled web we weave . . . ” was never so apropos.  When questioned, Jay first said that he never took any of his mother’s money.  Then, he said she loaned him $600,000.  Then, Jay said he paid back his mother.  However, we scoured Shirley’s bank records and Jay’s bank records and proved that Jay never paid any money to his mother.  This led Jay to say that, “well, I paid back my mom by investing the money — $600,000 — for her.”  But, our investigation proved that Jay invested the money took from his mother into his own investment accounts, not accounts for Shirley.  Jay just could not contrive lies that could explain his previous lies.

On the eve of a court hearing to award our client damages caused by Jay’s embezzlement from his mother, we settled the case for a payment of all of the money Jay stole, punitive-type damages of $600,000, plus attorneys’ fees incurred by our client prosecuting the case — for a total payment from Jay of $1.65 million.

My clients, John and Val, are successful business owners and live in an elegant home in Granite Bay.  Their passion is roses — all kinds of roses and roses from all over the world.  Their landscaping is legendary in the Sacramento area for its uniqueness and beauty.  In the middle of it all lies their 750 picture-perfect rose bushes.  While their landscaping crew of four men work full time maintaining the gardens, John and Val hired a company to spray their gardens with pesticides. Instead, the company used a different chemical, apparently a herbicide, which chemically burned the roses and devastated the gardens John & Val had built and tended for over twenty years.  Though seemingly indisputable, the company denied any liability and fought the litigation with every penny their insurance company had.   The company pointed the finger of blame at its chemical supplier, at John & Val, and at their gardeners. The case went to trial in Placer County.

We knew the biggest hurdle would be convincing a jury of 12 people that my clients should be awarded $1 million to replace their damaged gardens.  After all, not too many people can imagine spending that much on their gardens.

The Defendant called eight (8) expert witnesses to support its claim that someone other than them caused all the damage to the gardens.  Our job was to discredit all of the experts.  We cross-examined their chemicals expert, roses expert, soils expert and all the rest.  One by one, we proved that the experts were — either intentionally or because of lack of knowledge — wrongly blaming others for the damage caused by the company.

In the end, we asked the jury to award $1 million to replace the damaged rose garden and the hundreds of mature trees, bushes and other plants.  The jury awarded us not only all of the cost of replacing the damaged landscaping, but they also awarded $400,000 for pain and suffering caused by the event.  After the jury verdict was read and the case was over, many of the jurors hugged my clients and wished them well.  This trial was a complete vindication for my clients.