We were lucky to catch up with Shahrad Milanfar recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Shahrad thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.
We took this case because the facts and what happened to our client resonated with me personally. Our client deserved much better and the defendants’ conduct was elder abuse. The details are at the following link. This $32,000,000 verdict is one of the largest for elder abuse cases in California and we are proud to have obtained it for our client who deserved better.
https://www.milanfarlaw.com/
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Yes, with the help of the International Rescue Committee my mom, brother, and I moved to the US when I was around 11 years old. The IRC helped my dad immigrate to the US a few years later. I grew up in Oakland and had to go to Court to testify against some guys who beat me up at school. While I didn’t end-up getting on the stand, it was a life changing experience. I was impressed by the prosecutor who was very caring and made me feel a lot less nervous. I remember thinking I wanted to be like this person. I have been mentored by a number of amazing attorneys over the years. The most influential one was Bernie Segal who instilled a sense of fairness and taught us how to handle ourselves in Court.
I founded our firm in January 2020. While the timing was not great and the journey has been a true challenge, it has been the most rewarding thing I have done in my professional career. Our firm has gone from being a mostly defense firm to 99.9% plaintiff. We focus on catastrophic personal injury, product liability, Civil Rights / Police Brutality, and nursing home abuse cases. We are ultimately the voice for people who did not have a voice in a process that caused them significant injury. You can read more about our work and results on our firm’s website at www.milanfarlaw.com.
I also founded our firm because I didn’t want to be in my 90s wondering what could have been. My parents came to this country with nothing. They were around the same age I was when I opened our firm. They worked hard through many challenges to give us the opportunity to have a better life. In context, I had a lot more resources and skills to rely on than they did. So, it made sense to bet on those skills and resources. Of course, our attorneys, staff and relationships with colleagues and advisors significantly help us in dealing with our daily challenges. Standing in as the voice for our clients is the best part of what we do.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Our most recent, $32,000,000 verdict is a great example of our resilience. We fought a significantly larger firm with vast resources on a case for an 88 year old deaf client who had dementia. The opposition told us that the case was not elder abuse. They believed they did nothing wrong and, at best, it was a customer service dispute. As a trial attorney we worked for 3 years gathering the information and distilling it to a very concise story for our jury. We were able to effectively tell the jury that the case was about trust, betrayal, and fraud. This was a product of our hard work, training, and preparation. We were ultimately able to obtain a just verdict for a client who was illegally mistreated and abandoned by the defendants. The jury agreed.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I grew up in Iran during the revolution and the Iran/Iraq war. I the moved to Oakland, California when I was young. So, fear and anxiety were a huge part of my life experience. The biggest think I have learned is that the things I worry about today are things that pale in comparison to the things I was worried about as a kid. So, for me, context matters. Putting life in context helps me reduce the stress that we have to deal with as trial lawyers. Doing so allows me to be fully present when I’m advocating on behalf of my clients. Taking this approach allows me to achieve better results because it allows me to bring my authentic self to the process.
Contact Info:
- Website: Milanfarlaw.com
- Instagram: Milanfarlaw
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MilanfarLawFirm
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/milanfar-law-firm
- Twitter: milanfarlawfirm
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/milanfar-law-firm-pc-walnut-creek-2?osq=milanfar