Mark Algorri

Mark Algorri is a founding partner of DAA and was born in Los Angeles and raised in Arcadia, CA. He graduated from UCLA in 1976 and obtained his J.D. in 1979 from the University of San Fernando Valley College of Law.  While at UCLA, at the age of 22, Mark managed and produced rock-and-roll bands, including Van Halen. His days with Van Halen have been chronicled in Greg Renoff’s recent bestselling book, Van Halen Rising.

After law school, Mark joined Louis DeWitt’s Century City based criminal defense trial firm where he began trying criminal jury trials. By the middle 1980’s, Mark, who was now a partner with DeWitt, began handling complicated plaintiff’s personal injury cases, including catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases. In 1990, he received a $1.4 million verdict for injuries suffered in an industrial accident.

Mark followed up with numerous, successful verdicts, including a $2.7 million verdict for a crushed foot; a $3 million judgment for bad faith insurance practices against Mercury Insurance;  $4.75 million against the City of Los Angeles for an injury settlement after verdict for liability of a dangerous road design; $7 million pre-lawsuit settlement for a passenger in an uninsured car striking a legally parked pick-up truck; $19 million verdict for injuries in a freeway motor vehicle accident; and $25 million verdict for injuries in a motor vehicle accident.

In 2016, Mark was trial counsel in Barickman v Mercury Insurance Co, a significant 4^th District Court of Appeal case that created important insurance bad faith law. Mark has now tried over 75 cases to verdict in both state and federal courts, including criminal cases.

In addition, Mark has gained for his clients many large money settlements including over $4.5 million for police misconduct, over $20 million for insurance bad faith; and over $40 million for toxic contamination, in addition to settlements for general personal injury and wrongful death claims.  Many of these verdicts and settlements have been against the biggest and most aggressive industry titans, such as Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corporation, Cooper Tire Co., Farmers Insurance Co., and Mercury Insurance Co.

In 1992, Mark was featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes® with Ed Bradley in a case that exposed dangerous automobile car seats that were used by many manufacturers. The seat backs would collapse and catastrophically injure or kill the occupants during rear end accidents. That case helped to bring about more stringent automotive safety standards. Mark has also been extensively interviewed on many other news programs including those on ABC, NBC, CBS and Reason®.

Mark is presently the firm’s managing partner.  He has an A.V. rating from Martindale-Hubbell, is a member of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA), the Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC), the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, the American Association for Justice, the Academy of Catastrophic Injury Attorneys, the National Association of Distinguished Counsel Nation’s Top One Percent, and the Top 100 Trial Lawyers. He is also an associate in the American Board of Trial Advocates, an invitation only, peer-recognized organization. In 2013 and 2015, Mark was a nominee for CAALA Trial Lawyer of the Year and in 2015, a nominee for CAOC Consumer Attorney of the Year.  In 2014, Mark received one of the Top Ten Verdicts in Southern California, according to Verdict Search®, a national jury verdict research company.  In that same year, Mark co-authored with his colleague, Carolyn Tan, an article on insurance bad faith practices in the Advocate, CAALA’s monthly magazine.

Mark has been selected as a Southern California Super Lawyer in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 and also has a perfect score of 10 on AVVO® , the consumer attorney rating site.