Man in the Arena DOING THE RIGHT THING FOR THE UNDERDOG AT BISNAR CHASE by Dan Baldwin
It’s always David and Goliath. Our clients are always the underdog, and they are under tremendous pressure. Part of my job with a plaintiff who has been mistreated is to reassure them that they are doing the right thing, that they are in the right and that I am their champion in this battle,” says H. Gavin Long, Partner and Trial Lawyer at Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys. Long has a wide range of jury trial experience in cases from murder and fraud to medical malpractice in state and federal courts. He is known for taking personal injury cases to trial and has consistently obtained verdicts above the defendant’s offer, beating the plaintiff’s CCP 998 and busting wide open the defendant’s insurance policies. “Being a trial lawyer fits my personality. For me, it’s the best job I could have. I get a lot of satisfaction when an insurance company has to pay a large jury verdict out of its own pocket (on top of the policy limits) because they would not pay the policy limits. Bisnar Chase is one of the top law firms in California and also has a national presence. Ten years ago, I saw an ad in the Daily Journal for an attorney position and decided to take my shot. Fortunately, I got the job amongst 50-60 applicants,” he says.
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Attorney Journals San Diego | Volume 221, 2022
Crushing the Competition One of the ways Long and his firm crush the competition is their willingness to not only go that extra mile for their clients, but to take the journey into new territory. Their nationally recognized and innovative use of crash test dummies in cases involving vehicles is a perfect example. Long cites cases in which a roof-crush severely injured a client. In such cases, they find a match for the truck that was involved in the incident and recreate the accident. They and their experts flip the vehicle, drop it on its roof, and examine the exact kind of damage caused. “We invest hundreds of thousands of dollars doing crash testing in our auto defect cases. We become like a mini auto manufacturer and prove through testing we can make cars safer for consumers. We do car-tocar crash tests to mimic an actual crash. We buy SUV’s and drop them on their roofs to show roof crush and alternative designs. We do sled testing with hybrid III fully instrumented crash test dummies to show how we can create safer seats, and so on and so on,” he says. It’s an expensive process. Not only does the firm have to purchase an exemplar vehicle, they also have to go to the considerable expense of the recreation. They hire professionals who can provide validated information
