A Los Angeles workers’ comp firm since 1965

1. You call, or send the form. The form is six questions, and a person calls you back within one business day.
2. The first call takes about fifteen minutes. We ask what happened, what has been paid, and what has stopped.
3. You sign nothing until we recommend it. The consultation is free, whatever we recommend.
4. If the case goes forward, a judge sets the fee. It is contingent — generally 9% to 15% of what is recovered — and you are not responsible for costs we advance if there is no recovery.

If getting here is the problem, do not come. An attorney from the firm goes to your home, your hospital room, or your rehabilitation facility. Say so when you call.

Not every injury needs a lawyer, and if yours does not, we will tell you on the phone. But waiting to see if it gets better is the most common way people lose claims entirely, because “better” takes fourteen months. These are the situations in which you probably do need one.

• Your claim was denied or delayed.

  Filing the claim form started a 90-day clock, and up to $10,000 in treatment while they investigate.

• Your checks stopped, or come late.

  The law adds an automatic 10% to any late temporary or permanent disabilityPD Permanent Disability. Compensation for lasting impairment. A different and much lower weekly rate — 2026 maximum $290/week. payment.

• Treatment is being denied.

  You are inside the utilization reviewUR Utilization Review. The process that approves, modifies, or denies each treatment request. A modification is a denial of what it left out. and IMRIMR Independent Medical Review. The appeal from a UR denial. 30 days (10 if the dispute is only over drugs on the MTUS Drug List). machinery, and every step of it has a deadline.

• A permanent disability rating is coming.

  Especially after surgery. The rating stringRating string The row of numbers encoding your entire permanent disability calculation. Checkable arithmetic. is checkable, and it goes wrong regularly.

• Apportionment is being asserted.

  That some of your disability comes from age, a prior injury, arthritis, or something non-industrial.

• You have a QME panel.

  Deadlines are running, and the specialty and timing rules are unforgiving.

• You are being offered a settlement.

  Particularly a Compromise and ReleaseC&R — Compromise and Release A lump sum that closes future medical treatment permanently., which closes future medical care.

• Someone besides your employer contributed.

  A driver, a machine manufacturer, a property owner. A third-party case pays for pain and suffering, which workers’ compensation does not.

• You were fired after the injury.

  Firing someone for filing violates § 132a: 50% more compensation, up to $10,000, plus reinstatement and lost wages.

• Your employer has no insurance.

  The Uninsured Employers Benefit Trust Fund process is procedurally unforgiving.

• The injury is catastrophic.

  For nine listed conditions, temporary disabilityTD / TTD / TPD Temporary Disability, Total or Partial. Wage replacement while recovering. Two-thirds of average weekly earnings; 2026 maximum $1,764.11/week. runs 240 weeks instead of 104, and it is routinely missed.

• You had a prior disability.

  That may mean SIBTFSIBTF Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund. Pays where a pre-existing disability plus an industrial injury produce a substantially greater disability. Rewritten by SB 171 in July 2026., and SB 171 rewrote SIBTF effective July 2026.

Call the same day if the claim was denied, you were fired or punished for filing, or more than a year has passed with nothing paid. Those involve deadlines that cannot be fixed once missed.

And when you probably do not need us. If the claim was accepted, treatment is being authorized, payments are arriving every two weeks, and there is no permanent impairment, you probably do not. Every DWCDWC Division of Workers’ Compensation, part of the Department of Industrial Relations. Administers the system. Information Services Center: 1-800-736-7401. district office has an Information & Assistance officer who answers questions and helps with forms at no cost. We will tell you that on the phone, too.

This is a California workers’ compensation practice. Here is what the work is at each stage of a claim, and what we look for at each one.

1. The claim. Filing the DWC-1DWC-1 The claim form. Filing it starts the 90-day presumption and the $10,000 treatment obligation. starts the 90-day presumption and the obligation to authorize up to $10,000 in treatment while the claim is investigated. A denial is where the fight starts, not where it ends.
2. Treatment. When care is denied, the dispute runs through utilization review and independent medical review. We check whether the denial was valid before anyone argues about medicine.
3. The medical-legal exam. Where the medical questions are disputed, a QMEQME Qualified Medical Evaluator. A state-certified physician who resolves disputes. Unrepresented workers get a panel of three by random draw. or an AMEAME Agreed Medical Evaluator. A physician both sides agree on. Available only to represented workers, and practically very hard to move away from. answers them. The specialty and the timing rules are unforgiving, and we track both.
4. The rating. Permanent disability is built from a rating string, not a settlement conversation. We check every number in it, and we contest apportionmentApportionment Dividing permanent disability between industrial and non-industrial causes. It is to disability, not to findings on an image. the evidence does not support.
5. The settlement. A Compromise and Release and a Stipulated Award of the same dollar value are not the same result. One closes future medical care; the other leaves it open. We explain which one you are being offered before you sign.
6. Beyond workers’ comp. Where someone other than the employer also caused the injury, we raise it early, because a third-party case reaches damages workers’ compensation cannot. Retaliation for filing is a claim of its own, under § 132a.

Two attorneys, and both State Bar records are public. The person who calls you back is from this office — the same people who would handle your case, not a call center or a referral service.

Both attorneys, and how we state credentials →

Nothing to find out, and nothing up front. Your attorney does not set the fee. A workers’ compensation judgeWCJ Workers’ Compensation Judge. Decides your case. There is no jury. does, and the law prohibits an attorney from demanding or accepting a fee until the appeals board has approved or set it.

• No retainer, no hourly bill, no cost to consult — There is nothing to pay to find out whether you have anything worth doing.
• The fee comes out of the recovery — Not out of your pocket.
• No recovery, no fee — And you are not responsible for costs we advance if there is no recovery.
• Medical treatment benefits are generally not subject to the fee — The percentage attaches to indemnity and settlement, not to the value of care authorized.
• The judge reviews it — If the fee is not justified by the work, it gets reduced.

What a lawyer costs, in full

English, Spanish, and Korean, with attorneys and staff fluent in each — not a translation line, and not a promise that someone will find an interpreter later. The consultation is in the language you prefer.

Outside our office, the law gives you an interpreter too. If you do not speak or understand English well, you are entitled to an interpreter at no cost at medical treatment appointments, medical-legal examinations, depositions and Appeals Board hearings. Your interpreter rights.

Every substantive page here is written from primary sources — the Labor Code, the regulations, and published decisions — reviewed by a California workers’ compensation attorney, and dated.

1. Every statute, regulation, case and number is checked against a primary source — before it is published.
2. Where the law is unsettled, we say so — and an argument is labelled an argument, not an entitlement.
3. Every substantive page names its reviewing attorney and a review date — and the date means the page was re-read that day.
4. When we get something wrong, we correct it in the open — every correction is logged, with its date and its source.
5. No unsourced ratings, unattributed testimonials, or awards we cannot link to — three credentials are left off the attorneys page on purpose, and each absence is explained.

• Results

  — Five representative recoveries, each with the facts that produced it, and what a number cannot tell you.

• Reviews

  — Every rating on Google, Facebook and Avvo, the criticism included, and no hand-picked quotes.

• Corrections

  — What we got wrong, the date we fixed it, and what we changed.

• How we research this site

  — Where every statement of law here comes from, and who checks it.

• About the firm

  — How we work, and what sixty years should be worth to you.

Map and directions — the firm’s Google Business Profile. Corrected 2026-08-23: this page once said no linkable profile existed. It does.

You do not need every document, or the right words. The first call is built around three questions, and it helps to think about them first.

No paperwork? Call anyway. Tell us what you remember. The documents can come later, and many of them can be rebuilt from the providers and the claims administrator.