Page 3 - Matthew McNicholas

“Ithink I always just assumed I’d be a lawyer,” says Mc- Nicholas. “I just thought, ‘My dad is a lawyer, seems like a good living,
I guess I’ll do it.’
“It wasn’t as though my par-
ents expected it of me either,” he adds. “We’re a big, Catholic family, and they already had two lawyers so they wanted a priest or doctor with the last one. Well, I never could en- vision myself as a priest, and medicine just didn’t interest me, so ... ”
Apparently, it was the right choice. Today, a partner in the firm McNicholas & McNicho- las LLP, he’s recognized as one of the leading trial lawyers in California, representing vic- tims in a range of
warned his employer about the shooter. “While I didn’t know the exact terminology at the time, it was a negligent retention and agency issue. My dad came in second place in that case.”
After high school, McNicholas enrolled at UCLA for his un- dergraduate studies, then Loyola Law School. In the summer following his first year of law school, McNicholas was an extern for United Stated District Judge John G. Davies of the Central District of California.
“Technically, I worked for his two law clerks, who did all the research for the judge,” McNicholas says. “That summer, in that experience, I learned about legal writing. It was one of my best ex- periences during law school and really invaluable. I’m still friends with both of the clerks to this day.”
Every attorney at some point must decide in which area of the law he or she will focus. Again, this was seemingly a “no brainer” for McNicholas who had first observed his father and then his two older siblings in their practice.
“Well, as a kid all I really knew was that my dad was a trial lawyer,” he says. “In fact, it was exactly what all those TV lawyers did, so, in a way, I don’t think I realized there were other types of lawyers.”
As a successful trial lawyer himself, McNicholas has represented myriad clients in cases that range from wrongful death to employ- ment law. Regardless of the client or details of the case, he focuses on preparation and researching every detail of the situation. Of-
areas, includ- ing catastrophic injury, wrongful death, employment law, maritime law, landlord-tenant habit- ability, product liability, sexual assault and other con- sumer-oriented matters, such as civil rights and aviation disas-
ters.
But having a father in the profes- sion didn’t mean McNicholas was hand- ed anything. In fact, he began working his way up the ladder while still in high school. “Starting at the age of 14, I worked sum- mers for my dad’s law firm,” he says. “I mainly worked in the copy room doing all sorts of menial tasks. That’s back when you had to manually pagi- nate documents; so I did that, made copies, ran er- rands and helped take things to court. Then, as I got older and had a driver’s license, I’d go file documents and deliver various court related materials in addition
“My work is
high-octane, high-end litigation whichisvery demanding on time and results ...”
ten this means learning every aspect of a particular industry. “My trial preparation be- gins two to three weeks prior to trial by reviewing all the materials and preparing my examinations, which requires reading all depositions, ana- lyzing all exhibits and an- notating my exhibit books,” he says. “From there, I spend countless hours reviewing witness preparations, deposi- tions and ultimately strategiz- ing on building a strong and
solid case.”
For instance, in one of his
more memorable cases, Mc- Nicholas represented the chil- dren of a young couple who died in an auto accident that involved a tire failure.
to the copying stuff.”
During one of these working summers, while still in high
school, McNicholas delivered some items to his father who was in the midst of a jury trial with another trial legend Raul Magana. During the lunch hour, his dad “asked” him to re- main in the courtroom to handle some items.
“He handed me a book and said, ‘These are the remaining jury instructions, we need you to type them up.’ Well, there weren’t computers back then, I just had to use the clerk’s type- writer and the perforated jury paper,” McNicholas says. “I didn’t want to make any errors, so I typed very slowly.”
McNicholas still remembers the case to this day — the plain- tiff was an employee at GTE shot nine times by an employee of a different company working the same job site. The GTE employee survived and sued the employer because he had
“You have these three young lives, now orphans, somewhat in your hands,” he says. “They went to live with their paternal grandparents who had to come out of retirement in order to be able to support the children. They were spending everything they had, including their savings. At the end of the day, we were able to do right by all of them, with structured payments that at least
made the financial aspects of their lives better.”
In order to proceed with this case, McNicholas had to become
intimately familiar with the tire making process to identify a prov- able defect and how the manufacturer would defend the particu- lar situation.
“When tires are manufactured, they have a round drum and put layers on it,” he says. “The first layer is like the inner liner, and then they start adding layers over it. These layers include rubber, synthetics, steel belts, cord plies, nylon plies, and they keep stack-