He took a road less traveled
The gig: Consumer lawyer with offices in Claremont and Beverly Hills
Family: Wife, Jilda; three grown sons and a daughter, 6
Role model: His father, a Wisconsin country lawyer. “He instilled in me the impression that it’s good to help people who can’t help themselves. That’s what he did -- all kinds of legal chores for farmers -- getting paid in chickens and cheese and beer or whatever. They all came to him with their problems. He was a problem solver, legally, and that stuck with me. I knew I wanted to help people.”
First job: While in law school at the University of Wisconsin, Shernoff worked for the local district attorney and for a legal aid society. Then he spent three years in the Army as a defense lawyer in court-martial cases in Missouri, where he got used to long odds.
Fork in the road: In 1965, as his tour with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps was ending, Shernoff lined up two jobs: one with a law firm in Wisconsin and one with the National Labor Relations Board in San Francisco. Even after he and his wife got into his Ford Falcon to leave Missouri, he wasn’t sure which job to take.
“Do I turn right or left? I didn’t make that decision until I was at the freeway. I turned left because I thought there would be more opportunities. California was a place where things were happening.”
Shernoff spent a year with the NLRB, passed the state bar and then took a job with a lawyer in Claremont, where he did all kinds of cases, including personal injury and divorce.
Big break: In 1974, Shernoff took the case of Mike Egan, a roofer who fell when a rung on his ladder broke. Though Egan was disabled, his insurer abruptly cut off his disability payments. The jury in Egan vs. Mutual of Omaha awarded Egan more than $5 million. Although the California Supreme Court lowered the damages, its historic 1979 decision was a huge victory for insurance consumers.
The opinion imposed new duties of good faith and fair dealing on insurance companies. It also helped form the basis for a new legal field, bad-faith litigation. The case has been cited more than 4,000 times since.
Shernoff and others expanded on the theory of insurance bad faith in a line of cases that continues today. His latest battle is against health insurers that drop enrollees after they get sick to avoid paying their medical bills, a controversial practice known as rescission that his litigation brought to light.
“A lot of lawyers get nice cases and verdicts. But I am proudest of the insurance bad faith body of law that was created by those cases. After I’m gone, the body of law lives on. To me, it’s the biggest protection between the consumer and the insurance industry.”
His passion: After the Egan case, Shernoff, now 71, went out on his own to focus on representing consumers against insurers of all types, including property, life and health.
“The whole David versus Goliath aspect of it appealed to me, and nobody was taking on the insurance companies. I thought, boy, there needs to be some balance there. This was too one-sided. Once that grabbed me I was driven. . . . I got consumed by the whole idea of pushing this concept forward. And I became pretty single-minded.”
Biggest verdict: More than $100 million for the American Samoan government in insurance claims stemming from a 1991 hurricane.
High-profile clients: Shernoff represented the MGM Grand Hotel in claims on its property insurer after a devastating fire. Kirk Kerkorian turned to him twice in insurance disputes. And he recently settled a life insurance claim on behalf of the daughter of late actor Heath Ledger.
High-profile cases: Helping families claim payouts from life insurance policies purchased by Holocaust victims.
On winning: “Somebody comes to me with, say, a $10,000 problem, and they could come out of my office with $100,000 in their pocket. That makes me really happy, and it makes them really happy. And they think I’m a great lawyer. I’m getting notes right now from the Holocaust families. That’s what my law license was for was to bring about that kind of balance and fairness and happiness to people.”
On picking cases: “You do your due diligence upfront. We have a lot of people who come to us, but we try really hard to screen them and make sure they are legit and aren’t just people trying to screw insurance companies. We spend a lot of time and money upfront making sure cases are meritorious.”
Advice for others: “If something comes along that really touches your fancy, you should really go for it and not let the opportunity slide by.”
Plans to retire: “None.”
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