Goliath slayer.

Attorney Tom Girardi staggers towering corporate giants with the class action lawsuits he files on behalf of aggrieved individuals

Tom Girardi is a founding partner of Girardi & Keese, a downtown law firm that has earned a reputation as L.A. County's king of the class action lawsuit.

The list of Goliaths that Girardi has taken on over the years includes some of California's biggest firms, such as the former Lockheed Corp. (now the Lockheed Martin Corp.) and Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

In the Pacific Gas case, the utility company agreed in July to pay $333 million to 650 residents of the desert community of Hinkley, Calif. The residents blamed incidents of cancer and other diseases on contaminated water leaked from a gas pumping station.

In the Lockheed case, Girardi & Keese represented 625 former and current Lockheed employees, who accused the aerospace firm of exposing them to dangerous chemicals without their knowledge. Lockheed settled the case out of court in 1993 for $33 million.

His firm's biggest cases in progress involve two of L.A.'s largest entities: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Hollywood's seven major movie studios.

In the first case, Girardi & Keese and the law offices of Steven Zelig in Santa Monica have filed a lawsuit on behalf of 1,200 parties, mostly business owners, along Hollywood Boulevard. The owners are seeking $1 billion-plus in damages, stemming from claims that their businesses and property were damaged by MTA subway tunneling.

In the second suit, Girardi's firm is challenging Hollywood's archaic accounting system, whereby even the most successful movies are deemed unprofitable. By declaring their movies unprofitable, the studios do not have to pay out money under profit-sharing agreements written into their contracts with movie-making talent.

Q: How did you first become interested in the law?

A: I suppose it was through the movies. When I was a kid, there was a series called "The Defenders." (Actor) E.G. Marshall lost most of his cases, but that never deterred him. That was the fun of "The Defenders."

"To Kill a Mockingbird" came out when I was in college. It was the story of a black man accused of raping a woman - a very unpopular case. If you see movies like that, you start to sympathize with the underdog.

I thought it was a kick that you could go in and represent someone against the largest corporations in the world and have an absolutely level playing field.

Q: How do you feel about lawyers working on a contingency basis?

A: I think all lawyers should be on contingencies. It forces them to do the right thing. I don't know if the hourly lawyer has the same incentives to get to the bottom line. I think the whole world should be on a contingency basis. If you don't cure the problem, you shouldn't be paid.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I'm very low-key. I try to be decent to my opponents. I find this whole lack of civility that's crept into our system - especially in the civil arena - very depressing.

When I started practicing, no lawyer would ever oppose a short continuance or question the date on a deposition. Or if another lawyer made a mistake, the last thing you would try to do is run down to the courthouse and get the case thrown out.

Now you get so much lawyer dislike generated in these cases, that every case becomes a personal vendetta, not just the righting of a problem.

Q: Why has the system changed so much?

A: Lawyers have gotten out of the problem-solving business. I love young lawyers, but I also think many of the abuses are coming from young lawyers. The older lawyers are more genteel.

Q: How would you rectify the problem?

A: I think the law schools have to do something, because the product they're turning out has a defective gene. We've just designed a trial ethics course that we're going to give at Loyola (Marymount University) next spring.

The theme of the course will be looking at a time when lawyers were there to solve problems.

Q: How did you become involved in class action suits?

A: I would read about cases that were small and couldn't be corrected (on a case-by-case basis). For example, there was the way hotels were slapping a 25-cent charge onto every phone call people made from their rooms.

The first class action cases we got were mostly toxic cases where a small community had been harmed, but the harm wasn't so significant that individuals could afford to get their own lawyers. Those cases were right up our philosophical alley.

The best example is the Garrison case (i.e. the Estate of Jim Garrison vs. Warner Bros., which challenges the bookkeeping practices of all seven major film studios).

There's a great example of how it would be impossible for any individual to make a claim on his own. Very few lawyers would take the case, because they'd be roughed up so much by the studios.

Q: How much in damages are you asking for in the Garrison case?

A: I think it's probably a $1 billion case. That would be an appropriate figure. But it would be even more appropriate to change the system.

Q: What's the status on your class action suit against the MTA?

A: Right now the case is in discovery. We're providing answers to a lot of irrelevant questions the contractors are asking us.

Q: What percentage of damages will you take on the Hollywood Boulevard case?

A: These cases are usually on a 25 percent fee basis. We have 10 lawyers and 15 law clerks working on the Hollywood Boulevard case. We've put out $4 million on the case so far, which doesn't even include our lawyers' time.

Q: Are these cases very lucrative for your firm?

A: Contingency cases are not necessarily a huge windfall for anyone. You basically earn your money in these cases. Very seldom do you file a case and they say, "There's your money." And if you lose the case...

Snapshot

Tom Girardi

Company: Girardi & Keese

Position: Founding partner

Education: Loyola University, BS in psychology; Loyola Law School, JD; New York University, LLM/SJD.

Career turning point: Winning a $1.41 million judgment in a medical malpractice case in 1970. The case was the first-ever $1 million-plus award for a medical malpractice case.

Most admired person: My father - "He's managed to be a total gentleman all his life."

Hobbies: golf, wine tasting, lecturing

Personal: wife, Kathy; two daughters and one son