Established in 1959, Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger is one of the premier personal injury firms in the United States
For more than six decades, our personal injury attorneys have successfully represented injured people in both state and federal courts, before arbitration hearing boards and in mediation and settlement conferences. In the process, we have helped establish new law and used personal injury litigation to compel corporations to produce safer products.
As leaders in the areas of personal injury and wrongful death litigation, our attorneys have helped shape personal injury law, while securing millions of dollars in financial compensation for injured clients.
A Tradition of Excellence
Bruce Walkup trusted the wisdom and judgment of his fellow citizens – he trusted them to do what was right and to follow the law. In 1959 he founded a law firm with the goal of maximizing the recovery of clients by taking their cases before juries. Where other law firms hesitated, he trusted that jurors would do the right thing. That philosophy remains today as a guiding principal of our firm. We are trial lawyers. Our art is persuasion.
Today, we are involved in class actions and mass tort litigation. We represent clients in multi-district litigation venued outside of California. In addition to our traditional specialties, we also represent seniors in elder abuse cases against unscrupulous nursing facilities and retirement centers; we represent infants and parents of infants who are the victims of obstetrical negligence; we protect the catastrophically injured; we pursue the rights of health plan members when their HMO or health plan leaves them injured or disabled; we make sure that insurance companies live up to their contractural obligations.
National Recognition and Acclaim
Walkup lawyers serve on local Bar executive committees, belong to the local Inns of Court, serve as the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Judicial Screening and Selection Committee, volunteer as settlement conference judges at local superior courts, and provide pro bono services throughout the Bay Area. Because of our firm’s high profile and national stature, we are often called upon to handle cases outside of California, and regularly prosecute claims throughout the Western United States. Our lawyers have been associated by counsel in New York, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah and the Territories of Guam and Palau, to assist with the trial of personal injury claims. Trial court and appellate court judges know us, and respect us.
A Diversity of Clients
Since we opened our doors more than fifty years ago, our lawyers have consistently sought justice for the victims of injury regardless of financial status, ethnic background, educational level or social standing.
Our clients are often low-income earners, with neither the financial resources to absorb devastating personal loss, nor effective political alliances organized on their behalf. Whether our client’s cause is popular or unpopular, makes no difference. We recognize each individual’s right to effective advocacy and representation.
Whether our client is a single parent injured in an automobile accident, a small business owner who has suffered loss or injury due to corporate negligence, a tiny baby whose mother was the victim of medical negligence, or the CEO of a major Fortune 500 company, we make certain that the civil justice system works for them. We make sure that the rights of each are protected. We make sure that fair and just compensation is achieved.
When clients hire Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger, they benefit from the resources of Northern California’s premier personal injury firm regardless of their financial status, ethnic background or societal station.
On the Leading Edge of Advocacy
In the old days, young lawyers would come to court to watch Bruce Walkup in trial. Today, our attorneys travel throughout the United States and to foreign countries, teaching other lawyers the art of jury persuasion. More than half of our attorneys are asked to teach for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy. Firm members currently serve as faculty members at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, the University of San Francisco’s Kendrick Hall School of Law, Golden Gate University and Lincoln University. Our most senior partners have taught for the ABA Central European and Eurasian Initiative; they have traveled to Scotland and Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom, and most recently to Japan to help teach advocates how most effectively to communicate with juries. California’s premier personal injury firm regardless of their financial status, ethnic background or societal station.
Our lawyers use jury consultants, mock trial exercises, custom medical illustrations, visual re-creations, animations, life-size models and other tools to provide our clients with the winning edge before the first juror is seated. We try cases using the latest presentation technology, whether LiveNote, PowerPoint, or other customized software. We work with medical and technical illustrators, animators, engineers and programers to create demonstrative evidence. Our teams rely on state-of-the-art software, computers, projectors, models and visual presenters to communicate with clarity. We are among only and handful of firms nationwide with the resources, savvy and desire to match the insurance industry and major corporate defendants in the litigation of complicated catastrophic injury claims.
