Brian Chase

Chase was a long-haired surfer competing in pro-am contests who “was never going to be a suit and tie guy.” A college assignment changed that: he spent four days in the library basement combing microfiche on the Baby Fae baboon-heart case to win a class debate, and realized the research was what being a lawyer felt like. Combined with memories of Ford Pintos catching fire in the late 1970s — a defect he learned Ford could have fixed for $5 — he went to law school specifically to be a personal injury attorney.

While Bisnar Chase handles personal injury cases “from A to Z,” Chase’s own practice concentrates on auto defect litigation nationwide — seat back failures, roof crush, rollovers, airbag and seatbelt failures — a focus he traces to the Ford Pinto memo that weighed a $5 fix against expected payouts per “unit.” He says he is one of a handful of lawyers with a deep emphasis in that field rather than a “one hit wonder,” and he now handles Tesla seat back and battery fire cases as electric vehicles raise new issues.

In 2012 he won a $25 million verdict for Jacqueline Romine, paralyzed when her seat back broke in a rear-end collision. The money widened her doors and bought a hand-controlled van and ramps. Then the auto industry appealed, with manufacturers and component makers filing amicus briefs, and Chase won a published 2014 opinion — the only one, he says, affirming that the consumer expectation test can prove defect in a seat back case. California lawyers still call to borrow his motions, so the ruling keeps helping people beyond one client.

Chase recalls his first seven-figure result in the 1990s, for client Dorothy Darnell, in a case a defense lawyer had called “the biggest sham he’d ever seen.” It settled after trial began and led to his partnership with John Bisnar, who took over marketing and business — building a website when Chase thought clients didn’t own computers — and freed Chase to try cases. His advice to younger lawyers: “you’ve always got to keep hustling.” Thirty-one years in, he says he still has the fire he found in that library basement.

Consumer Attorneys of California named him Attorney of the Year in 2012, and he has been selected to Super Lawyers every year from 2006 through 2025. He was awarded a 2025 fellowship by the Litigation Counsel of America, listed among the nation’s top 1% by the National Association of Distinguished Counsel and included in The National Trial Lawyers: Top 100. He is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, has served as president of the Consumer Attorneys of California and chaired the Orange County Bar Association’s tort and trial section in 2023.

His reported results include a $117.5 million consumer class action, a $38.65 million motorcycle accident case and a string of auto defect recoveries: $24.7 million and $16,444,904 in seat back failure cases, $10,591,098 in a 15-passenger van rollover, $6.8 million in an airbag failure and commercial trucking case and $4.75 million in a roof crush rollover. He argues that trial lawyers and juries, not regulators, forced seat belts, airbags and stronger roofs into cars. He wrote “Still Safe at Any Speed” and its 2019 update, “The Second Collision.”

Chase earned his J.D. from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1992 and was admitted to the California State Bar in 1993. He grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs, moved to Orange County at 14 and surfed on the same team as future surfboard shaper Bob Hurley, competing in a Huntington Beach pro-am contest. He is managing partner and senior trial lawyer at Bisnar Chase in Newport Beach, California; the firm’s website is bestattorney.com. Trial Lawyer’s Journal has also published “Brian Chase’s ‘Closing Argument.’”