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![Leading Lawyer]](../images/ll.jpg)
Richard Alexander has earned a reputation for championing the underdog.
Alexander has never been afraid to
stand up for the little guy, to fight the big fight, and to do what is right.
By Brian foley
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A champion for human safety and health, Richard Alexander is a personal injury lawyer of great energy, impressive general knowledge, and great passion for his clients--many of whom develop lasting and caring realtionships with him and see him as a mentor. While his committment to legal education and equal opportunity for women and minorities in the field has won him prestigious rewards, his record as a litigator would be unbelievable, were it not true.
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A graduate of the top-rated University of Chicago Law
School, where he was a National Honor Scholar,
Alexander came to San Jose in 1976 to practice with
the legendary local trial attorney James Boccardo,
after first working with Melvin Belli in San Francisco.
“Dick values people,” says James McManis, a
prominent San Jose trial lawyer. “He takes good care of his family,
his lawyers, and his staff. When there is an injury or injustice, he
is there to help. As a character in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
March said, for Dick ‘to hear of a hurt is to seek to heal it.’ He is a
healer and a fighter, and there is none better.”
Seen by many as the successor to Boccardo, Alexander “has tons
of energy, a positive attitude, and enthusiasm that is contagious,”
community leader Mike Fox Sr. says.
“Trial attorneys are critical to society
because they have the ability to
keep the largest corporations honest
and thereby protect the public from
egregious wrongs.”
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Alexander and his law partner
Amanda Hawes—a national leader
in her own right who specializes
in protecting unborn babies and
workers from toxic chemicals and
co-founded the Silicon Valley Toxics
Coalition—are on the forefront of
representing people injured by a
wide range of defective products,
from Ford Explorers that roll over
and easily crumple, to solvents that
cause cancer and birth defects, to
drugs that cause unexpected strokes,
heart attacks, and kidney damage.
Sexual Assault
Alexander has a long history of
being an advocate for women and
abused children. As a board member
for three years of the Santa Clara
County Bar Association, he singlehandedly
spearheaded a public
education project to provide advice
for survivors of sexual assault. Fifteen
thousand copies of Alexander’s work
“Rape Crisis: The Victim’s Rights” were printed and used by rape
crisis centers in Northern California for years as a training tool. |
After a distinguished year as county Bar president, Alexander
was hailed by one judge as the most outstanding Bar leader in the
history of the county. Alexander went on to serve three years on
the board of governors of The State Bar of California, where he
took on the integration of state Bar committees. “Bar committees
were 90 percent men at the time,” Alexander says. “When I left,
they were 50-50 men and women. A lot of men were upset to be
moved aside, but you can’t avoid breaking eggs when you are
baking a cake.”
The Commission on Women took note of his dedication, and after
25 years of recognizing women of achievement, the organization
selected Alexander as its first “Man of the Year.”
Civil Rights of Abused Children
Alexander was one of the first legal advocates to champion the
civil rights of abused children. For his groundbreaking work suing
child molesters on behalf of children, the Santa Clara County Youth
Commission awarded him its medal.
Alexander has also fought for the rights of children who suffered as
a result of adoption fraud. He led the way in California with a leading
case against San Mateo County, and he has prosecuted adoption fraud
cases against San Diego, Tulare, and Contra Costa counties.
Cleaning Up Pollution
Alexander has led the fight against
the chemical poisoning of the
environment. He has sued polluters
for building homes in California on
land contaminated with arsenic; for
contaminating homes in Ohio with
radioactive gravel; for polluting
Californians’ drinking water with
potassium perchlorate, a chemical
used in rocket fuel; and for dousing
thousands of residents of Richmond
with tons of airborne sulfuric acid. |
Chemical Poisoning
He is well known for representing
hundreds of people who have cancer
and children with birth defects as a
result of exposure to solvents and
other carcinogens in electronic
industry manufacturing. Alexander
also represents children with birth
defects caused by being exposed to
toxic chemicals while in utero.
In a major case against IBM, which
was tried in San Jose, Alexander
collected millions of dollars for 250
IBM employees and their families in
California, New York, and Vermont.
The actual total is confidential.
Dangerous Cars, SUVs, and Other Consumer Products
On the consumer front, Alexander was instrumental in a class
action lawsuit requiring Nissan to buy back 33,000 defective
minivans. Ford had to recall 429,000 defective steering hoses, and
Chrysler had to fix 3.3 million vans with defective locks as a result of
his cases. In other class actions, General Electric was forced to stop
selling 90-watt bulbs as 100-watt replacements, and Bausch & Lomb
was required to stop selling contact lenses at inflated prices. He has
been responsible for having TCI roll back overcharges for cable TV,
and he ended Sears’ system of auto repair fraud. Weyerhaeuser
was required to replace defective home siding as a result of his
work—and this is only a smattering of his clients.
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“I don’t fight the same battle
twice,” says Alexander, explaining the
breadth of his legal campaigns. “It’s
an ongoing process of learning from
experience and avoiding thinking like
a lawyer. The key is to be creative.
In every case I learn something new,
apply the concept to a new challenge,
adapt, and revise. It’s fun and
rewarding for me to have my work be
my passion. I am very blessed.”
Alexander has become a national
leader in sharing what he has learned
from a wide range of cases with the
general public. He has published more
than 200 articles, many of which can
be found on Alexanderinjury.com.
His website provides a wide range of
helpful legal information and advice.
“We live in the most complicated legal
society in the history of the world,
but the basic rules are not taught in
schools,” Alexander says. “People
have to know the law that impacts
their lives and what they need to
do to protect themselves and their
families.”
Insurance Bad Faith
Alexander takes on insurance
companies that abuse claimants
in what is known as “bad faith”
litigation. That’s what happened in
the case of George Liu. He was driving
a motorcycle when an 18-year-old
hot-rod driver made an illegal U-turn
two cars ahead of him on a curving
road. When the van ahead of him
suddenly stopped to avoid hitting the
U-turn driver, Liu braked hard and
was thrown against the van, breaking
his back. The insurance company for
the U-turn driver who caused the
accident refused to pay its $30,000
policy to Liu, a man with a lifetime
personal injury. Alexander charged
forward, even though there was no
offer to settle, until the Friday before
trial, when $1 million was offered.
Alexander said “no.” After picking
a jury, the insurance company raised
its offer to $2 million. Alexander
said “no.” Finally after calling all
of the eyewitnesses to the crash to
testify in trial, Alexander negotiated a
settlement of $4.5 million.
“That’s a legal miracle,” Liu says.
“The only reason the insurance
company paid was because it knew
that if I took the case to verdict, I
would be coming back against them
for punitive damages,” Alexander
says. “With this settlement, they put
all claims to rest and made us promise
not to mention the name of the
insurance company. They were very
embarrassed. And they should be.”
Ask Alexander what he likes
to do best, and he says “fight for
people who need and deserve a real
lawyer.”
Major Injury Cases
Alexander’s law practice takes on
major wrongdoers for people who don’t
have thousands of dollars to spend on
a lawyer, and he accepts all the risk of
not only prosecuting cases, but also
paying for the cost of expert witnesses,
investigations, and travel necessary in
major cases against corporate behemoths,
such as IBM, Ford, General Motors,
Chrysler, BMW, Nissan Motor, Honda,
Pacific Gas & Electric, General Electric,
Amtrak, Southern Pacific Railroad,
DuPont, Shell Oil, Amoco, Chevron, Dow
Chemical, Sears, Nationwide Insurance,
Allstate Insurance, Fluor Corporation,
the state of California and the United
States government—all of whom he
has sued at least once. The number
of cities, counties, and governmental
agencies that he has held accountable
are numerous.
For 30 years, Alexander has consistently
been recognized by Martindale-Hubbell,
which has awarded him its top rating for
legal ability and adherence to ethical
values. The law firm he founded is listed
in the List of Preeminent Law Firms in
the United States. Avvo.com—another
independent attorney-rating agency—
gives Alexander 10 on a scale of 10 and
a rating of “superb.” And he is listed in
Who’s Who in the World, in America, in
California, in the West, and in American
Law.
“Lawyers like Richard Alexander make
the world a safer and more reliable place
for all of us, because, simply put, they
make our justice system work,” Mike
Fox Sr. says.
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