Attorney Rick Simons (Furtado, Jaspovice & Simons) has been one of California’s leading trial attorneys for over 40 years. He has specialized in child sexual assault cases since 2002, and won historic jury verdicts against The Bishop of Oakland [including punitive damages ], The Salesian Society [the only jury verdict in the nation against the SS for their hiding of known child molesters], and the Jehovah’s Witnesses [A $28 million dollar jury verdict in 2012 that at the time was the largest verdict in the world for a single victim of religious sexual assault]. From 2004 to 2006, Mr. Simons was the lead attorney (called Liaison Counsel) for nearly 200 Clergy abuse cases combined into a group known as “Clergy III.” His leadership led to recovery of nearly $200 million for these adult survivors of primarily Roman Catholic perpetrator priests.

 

Rick is a past president of the Consumer Attorneys of California, the state’s professional association for trial lawyers representing individuals against large corporations, insurance companies, and institutions. He was awarded the California "Attorney of the Year" award in 2005 by California Lawyer magazine, and “Trial Lawyer of the Year” award in 2013 by the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association. He has been named to the “Top 100 Attorneys in California” list by the legal newspaper The Daily Journal, and is frequently chosen to write or speak to groups of other trial attorneys on professional ethics and trial practice.

 

“I have found representing these brave survivors of the trauma of child molestation to be the most gratifying work of my career” says Mr. Simons. “Not only are we helping those kids, now adults, to face and conquer the trauma they have carried, often alone and in silence, throughout their lives, but we are pressuring the institutions that knowingly put them in harm’s way to protect children of the future from experiencing the pain and scars that kids who are abused live with.”