John Taylor
Founding Partner | Taylor & Ring
John Taylor is a sexual abuse, civil rights and wrongful death trial lawyer and founding partner at Taylor & Ring in Los Angeles, California. J.D., University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law.
Meet John
John C. Taylor is a trial lawyer and co-founder of Taylor & Ring in Los Angeles, California. He has tried more than 140 cases to verdict, covering police shootings and civil rights violations, sexual abuse, serious injury, wrongful death, product defects, insurance bad faith and employment claims.
His results include a $57.5 million insurance bad faith verdict arising from a plane crash that killed three men, $35 million verdicts against a hospital and in a high school coach abuse case, and an $18.6 million negligent entrustment verdict. He won a $10 million wrongful death verdict for the family of Sherri Rasmussen against former Los Angeles police detective Stephanie Lazarus, which the Court of Appeal upheld, and he obtained a $7.5 million settlement for the family of Kurt Reinhold, the largest the Orange County Sheriff’s Department has paid in a police shooting case. The Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles named him Trial Lawyer of the Year in 1988, and the Daily Journal gave him a California Lawyer of the Year award in 2025.
Taylor graduated from Ohio University and McGeorge School of Law. He began his career at the Sacramento County Public Defender’s office and later worked in insurance defense before co-founding Greene, Broillet, Taylor & Wheeler. He formed Taylor & Ring with Dave Ring in 2002. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Trial Advocates, a Fellow of the American College of Trial Attorneys and an emeritus member of the CAALA Board of Governors, and he was named to the Lawdragon Hall of Fame in 2026.
Experience and Expertise
Qualifications
Timeline
- J.D., McGeorge School of Law
- Graduate, Ohio University
Practice Areas
- Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (Emeritus Board of Governors)
- American Board of Trial Advocates (Diplomate)
- American College of Trial Attorneys (Fellow)
- American Association for Justice
- Trial Lawyers for Public Justice
- Public Counsel (Former Board of Governors)
- CAALA Trial Lawyer of the Year, 1988
- Daily Journal California Lawyer of the Year (CLAY Award), 2025
- ASCDC Civil Advocate Award, 2024
- Lawdragon Hall of Fame, 2026
- Lawdragon Legends, 2022
- Daily Journal Top 100 Lawyers in California, 2024 and 2025
- Super Lawyers, every year since 2004
- Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America, 2027
- Lawdragon 500 Leading Civil Rights & Plaintiff Employment Lawyers, 2026
- The National Trial Lawyers Top 100
- $57.5 Million Verdict: Insurance bad faith action arising from an aviation accident that killed three men (Santesson v. Beech Aircraft).
- $35 Million Verdict: For a woman raped by her adult male track coach while a minor student at Pomona High School in the 1990s.
- $35 Million Verdict: Against a California hospital that failed to protect an ICU patient sexually assaulted by a nurse while unable to move or speak.
- $28 Million Settlement: For seven women sexually abused by their first-grade teacher in the 1990s.
- $25.3 Million Verdict: Against the Westerly School in Long Beach for a former student abused over four years (Stephen W. v. Westerly School of Long Beach).
- $25 Million Verdict: For a former Dos Pueblos High School student sexually abused by an assistant coach.
- $18.6 Million Verdict: Negligent entrustment case after a company president let his wife drive a company vehicle days after she failed the DMV road test, seriously injuring a motorcyclist (Mallabo v. Wan Hai Lines).
- $14.4 Million Verdict: Improperly serviced asphalt truck caused a freeway chain collision that killed two and left one with severe brain damage (Pascua/White v. Industrial Asphalt).
- $13 Million Verdict: For a woman molested by a paraprofessional while attending Daniel Pearl Magnet High School.
- $12.9 Million Verdict: For a truck driver injured when a defective pallet jack toppled onto him (Munoz v. Sierra Autocars).
- $10 Million Verdict: Wrongful death verdict against LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus for the murder of Sherri Rasmussen, upheld by the California Court of Appeal.
- $8.75 Million Verdict: Wrongful death of an unarmed 29-year-old man shot by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies (Montalvo v. Los Angeles Sheriff's Dept.).
- $7.5 Million Settlement: Wrongful death of Kurt Reinhold, shot by officers in San Clemente; the largest Orange County Sheriff's Department police shooting settlement.
- $6.75 Million Verdict: Civil rights excessive force case in which police shot a man they mistook for a suspect (Galal v. City of Long Beach).
- $5.1 Million Verdict: Insurance bad faith for failure to timely resolve an underinsured motorist claim.
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