Consumer Watchdog will honor Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger shareholder Michael A. Kelly with its prestigious Lifetime Legal Achievement Award at the 2026 Rage for Justice Awards Celebration on Saturday, June 13, 2026, at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. The award recognizes seasoned legal professionals and public-interest advocates whose work has had a lasting impact by challenging corporate wrongdoing and advancing consumer safety. Other award recipients include Joy Chen, Eaton Fire Survivors Network, who will receive the Citizens Advocate of the Year, and Rep. Ro Khanna, who will be honored with the Phillip BurtonPublic Service Award.
For more than 40 years, Mike Kelly has built a national reputation as one of California’s leading trial lawyers and consumer advocates. Throughout his career, he has fought for individuals and families harmed by corporate negligence, dangerous products, utility-caused wildfires, medical malpractice, trucking crashes, and government misconduct. He has successfully tried, settled, or arbitrated more than 250 catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases resulting in recoveries exceeding $1 million for his clients.
In recent years, Mike has taken on some of the nation’s largest corporations, including Amazon, Kaiser, Tesla, PG&E, Southern California Edison, Uber, Pfizer, and Syngenta. He played a key leadership role in securing the historic $13.5 billion resolution of the 2017 Northern California wildfire litigation against PG&E and has represented families devastated by the Montecito mudslides linked to Southern California Edison’s negligence. He currently serves on the plaintiffs’ steering committee in the Los Angeles Eaton Fire litigation and continues to advocate for wildfire victims across California.
Mike’s many honors include repeated recognition among Northern California’s “Top Ten” Super Lawyers, being named San Francisco’s Personal Injury “Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers in both 2023 and 2024, and induction into both the National Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame and the LawDragon Hall of Fame. He is also a longtime appointee to the California Judicial Council’s CACI jury instruction task force by the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court.
Walkup congratulates Mike on this well-deserved recognition and celebrates his decades-long commitment to protecting consumers and pursuing justice for injured individuals and families.
Tickets and event information are available at the Rage for Justice Awards Celebration
