News & Publications Awards & Recognitions The Top 100 - California Law Business Ranks the State's Most Influential Attorneys for 1999The Top 100 - California Law Business Ranks the State's Most Influential Attorneys for 1999
California Law Business
September 13, 1999
Forget Walt Disney, Republicans and corporate titans. The change of guard revealed in this year's look at California's most powerful lawyers was led by the ascendancy of the New Electronic Order, Democrats and the lawyers for the next millennium.
Power is, admittedly, in the eye of the beholder - as most of the 300 or so lawyers who voted for the Top 100 reminded us. And in a state with more than 140,000 attorneys who make their mark in ways large and small, it's not surprising that nearly 600 lawyers received "votes" on the question of "Which lawyers have the most influence in California?" The biggest development in California Law Business' second annual survey of the state's most influential lawyers was the emergence of the new guard, as we've dubbed them. The stories of the professional ascent of the under-50 pack have common threads of risk-taking and reaching out to grab their personal brass rings, rather than waiting for a stage turn that may never come. Alejandro Mayorkas remembers his days working as an associate in a Century City law firm. He was making money but not making a difference. So he moved to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, where he rocked through the ranks to become the surprise selection to lead the nation's largest district office into the future. The old guard was skeptical - too young, not ready, they said. Mayorkas has since begun to change their perceptions.
THE TOP 100
Brian J. Panish
The renowned litigator recently obtained the largest product liability verdict ever - $4.9 billion against General Motors (later reduced to $1.2 billion) - which made front page news around the country. He was one of the attorneys who represented the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors against "Big Tobacco."
"One of the leading product liability/catastrophic injury trial lawyers in the country."
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- The Top 100: California Law Business Ranks the State's Most Influential Attorneys for 2000
