Michael Stephenson

Stephenson had no lawyers in his family and never considered law until his final year at Brown University, where he majored in music theory. Childhood favorites such as To Kill a Mockingbird and A Few Good Men had made courtroom lawyers seem like heroes, and a single pre-law course reading real cases proved “the most interesting class I took in all of college,” he says. He entered the University of Oregon School of Law intending to practice environmental law and finished near the top of his class.

Stephenson founded Bay Area Bicycle Law in 2010 as a Northern California firm devoted exclusively to injured cyclists, and he is an avid cyclist himself. On the “Celebrating Justice” podcast he says the people he works with would point to the humor and calm he brings to stressful work with clients whose lives have been upended. Raised by parents interested in meditation, he works to stay balanced and helps his attorneys and staff do the same.

As a third-year law student allowed to try cases as an Oregon public defender, Stephenson lost his first DUI trial for a man who had been drinking the day his father died. His first win came for a client pulled over while rushing to get urgent medication for his seriously ill wife. Stephenson, then 22 or 23, argued a justification defense; a loss likely meant a year in jail for the family's sole breadwinner. “My client started crying and I even started crying a little bit,” he says.

Stephenson wants more people to understand the good that plaintiff-side civil litigation does. Pop culture, from The Simpsons to Seinfeld, has caricatured personal injury lawyers for decades, he says, which disguises what he sees daily: corporations such as Uber, Lyft, Amazon and insurance companies taking advantage of people. Suing is often the only way an individual can force a company to make things right, and 12 jurors can order even the largest corporation to pay. Civil litigation, he says, is “one of the most powerful things that you can do for good in the world.”

Founded by Stephenson in 2010, Bay Area Bicycle Law represents cyclists throughout Northern California and describes itself as the only Northern California-based firm focused exclusively on bicycle law. Stephenson's work has included raising awareness of “doorings” involving rideshare services such as Uber, pressing companies to take responsibility for passenger safety and advocating for better training to prevent those incidents. He has also handled traumatic brain injury and spinal injury claims arising from collisions.

Stephenson earned a B.A. from Brown University in 2001 and his J.D. from the University of Oregon School of Law, graduating with honors, serving as managing editor of the law review and winning “Most Outstanding Trial Advocate” at a West Coast regional trial championship. He began his career in 2007 as a public defender in Oregon and later joined Davis Wright Tremaine's Portland office. He founded Bay Area Bicycle Law in San Francisco in 2010 and is based in Arcata, California; the firm's website is bayareabicyclelaw.com.

Stephenson has been named to the National Trial Lawyers' “Top 40 Under 40” (2017), the Million Dollar Advocates Forum (2011) and “Lawyers of Distinction” (2017). He belongs to the Lawyers Club of San Francisco, the U.S. Federal Court Bar and the Brown Alumni Bar. His results include more than $10.5 million in settlements across multiple traumatic brain injury cases, a $1 million settlement for an injured cyclist and a $995,000 settlement for spinal surgeries after a car collision.