CAL-ABOTA Board of Directors announced that OCBA Masters Division Chair Chris Wesierski has been selected as the 2018 Trial Lawyer of the Year.
Recognized as the highest honor a California trial lawyer can receive, the CAL-ABOTA Trial Lawyer of the Year is awarded annually to a recipient exhibiting the best traits of a trial lawyer - excellence in advocacy, a distinguished career and a reputation for civility, ethics, and fair play. The CAL-ABOTA Board of Directors includes officers of the eight local chapters. Each CAL-ABOTA chapter is entitled to nominate a candidate for Trial Lawyer of the Year, and the award recipient is selected by majority vote.
Wesierski has been practicing law in California for almost 40 years since passing the bar in 1979. He and his firm Wesierski and Zurek LLP have defended companies, municipalities, counties, and individuals in cases involving employment issues, product liability claims, insurance claim issues, and business disputes as well as all types of tort claims. He personally has defended doctors, lawyers, real estate appraisers, CEO's, police chiefs, Fortune 500 companies, cities, counties, and smaller companies through the years and over 100 trials to verdict.
Wesierski has won the Angelo Palmieri Civility award from the Robert Banyard Inn of Court for maintaining the legal profession's highest tradition of professionalism and civility. He has been recognized as a top 100 litigator in Southern California and has received America's Top 100 Attorneys Lifetime Achievement recognition as well. His verdicts have been recognized as verdicts of the year and of the week by the Daily Journal newspaper in California multiple times. He has been repeatedly named as one of the top 50 Attorneys in Orange County and has had top 20 defense verdicts multiple times. Wesierski has been named as America's Top 100 Civil Defense Litigators for 2018 and has also been named a Super Lawyer every year since its inception in 2005. He is rated at the highest level by AVVO and Martindale - Hubble.
Wesierski received his B.A., cum laude, from California State University Long Beach in 1975, and he earned his J.D. from the University of San Diego Law School in 1978.