Daniel Schneiderman

Daniel Schneiderman grew up in a family of doctors: a spine surgeon father, a pediatrician mother and an orthopedic trauma surgeon brother, but he loved English, writing and presenting. Winning a Toastmasters contest as a kid showed him how a story could move a room. When a blender accident severed nerves in his mother’s hand, he tourniqueted it, got her to the hospital and asked, “Whose fault was this?” After studying political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, law school felt like the obvious next step.

In Southern California’s crowded personal injury market, Daniel refuses to be a volume lawyer. He caps his caseload so he can be present at every step, from the hospital to the courthouse steps and after, acting as counselor, advisor and friend to clients in crisis. Instead of pay-per-click ads, he builds a presence on LinkedIn around transparency and depth of thinking, which brings organic referrals and immediate trust. “Small, hungry, and we know what we’re doing,” he says.

A catastrophic injury trial against Caltrans alongside his mentor Roger Dreyer. Oleanders left untrimmed for 20 years hid a broken-down car on the freeway shoulder, and a 60-year-old woman was catastrophically injured when another driver hit her. A few days into trial, Caltrans made a significant offer. Dreyer told the client it was guaranteed, life-changing money and that the decision was hers alone. Jurors later said they were considering far higher numbers, but Daniel says the lesson he still uses is separating lawyer ego from the client’s choice.

Daniel’s closing thought is aimed at young lawyers who want to run their own practice: what you don’t know is scary, and walking away from a paycheck is scarier, but there are more tools and more willing mentors in the legal world than ever before. Reach out, learn a new tool, stop measuring yourself against everyone else and build a practice that is true to you. “If there’s one person that it’s worth taking a risk on, it’s yourself,” he says.

Daniel earned a degree in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2009 and his J.D. from California Western School of Law in 2012. He is admitted in California and began his career at the San Diego District Attorney’s Office in 2013. He belongs to Consumer Attorneys of San Diego, the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, the American Association for Justice and the San Diego County Bar Association.

Schneiderman Trial Attorneys, founded in 2025, is based in San Diego, California, with a website at trialteam.com. The firm handles plaintiff personal injury, medical malpractice, wrongful death and civil litigation cases with a deliberately high-touch, low-volume approach. Daniel built it after gaining trial experience at the District Attorney’s Office and working with other firms, wanting a practice where he controls his own domain and keeps deep personal relationships with clients during the hardest moments of their lives.