* Elmer C. Low; Headed State Trial Lawyers Assn.

Elmer C. Low, 93, Pasadena lawyer and former president of the California Trial Lawyers Assn. As head of that organization of plaintiffs’ attorneys in 1974, Low became a chief spokesman in defending the controversial lawyers’ contingency fee. Under the contingency financing system, a plaintiff in a personal injury, medical malpractice or other civil damage case pays nothing to his lawyer up front, but agrees to give the attorney a percentage (usually a third to half) of any settlement or verdict achieved. Low told The Times in 1975 the contingency fee is wrongly maligned because it provides “the poor man’s ticket to the courthouse.” A native of New York City, Low studied philosophy at the City College of New York and earned law degrees at Fordham and New York universities. He practiced insurance and personal injury law in Manhattan for a few years and then relocated to Pasadena in 1943 where he specialized in personal injury, products liability and medical malpractice cases until his retirement in 1994. Low wrote two manuals for lawyers, “How to Prepare and Try a Negligence” in 1957 and “California Personal Injury Proof” in 1970. The attorney also taught law at USC and wrote occasional opinion pieces for The Times. A former president of the Pasadena Bar Assn., he earned that group’s Donald P. Wright Award for Distinguished Service in the Law last year. Low served as a trustee of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. and as president of the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Assn. as well as the state organization. He was also active in Pasadena area Kiwanis, Elks, Knights of Columbus and Sierra Club. On Aug. 9 in Pasadena.