Contact

Rob Marcereau

Marcereau Law Group

19 Hammond, Suite 505

Irvine, CA 92618

(949) 323-4890

www.themlgteam.com

The Power of Personal Connection in Personal Injury Law

"I think the biggest reason for our success is because we care. I invest the time to get to know my clients and understand what they’re going through. Unless you really know your client, you can’t fully connect with the jury. People wonder sometimes how we are able to get such big verdicts, but it all boils down to making that connection with people,” says Rob Marcereau, founder of Marcereau Law Group, a full-service boutique personal injury firm. 

Marcereau credits two primary factors for his remarkable success: a willingness to invest the time to gain an intimate and thorough knowledge of each client and a commitment to go the distance for those clients if the insurance company refuses to offer fair value for their injuries. 



Results prove the statement. In 2022, Marcereau won multiple seven-figure jury verdicts: a $1.4 million San Diego negligence case in which the best offer prior to trial was only $150,000. He won a $4 million jury verdict in Orange County for a motor vehicle accident case. The insurance company’s best offer before trial was $300,000.

A Specialty in Handling Complex, Emotional Distress Cases

While Marcereau and his staff handle numerous catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases, a significant number of his cases involve solely emotional distress damages involving complex facts. Marcereau and his team help children who have been victims of sexual abuse or hazing—claims that involve significant discovery against schools or institutions. He and his team also handle many cases involving fertility center malpractice, such as using the wrong sperm to impregnate the mother, implanting the wrong embryo, or losing/destroying embryos. Although these fertility cases involve solely emotional distress damages, Marcereau and his team are often able to frame them in such a way as to avoid the damages caps imposed by MICRA and have recovered millions for families affected by fertility malpractice. 

Mortuary negligence is another practice area they have developed. In a recent trial in downtown San Diego, Marcereau represented the family of a 27-year-old young man who lost his life in an auto accident. The family showed up to the wake only to be told by the mortuary that they had accidentally cremated the body the night before. The mortuary’s story didn’t add up and the family suspected that they had been given the wrong ashes. DNA tests on ashes are impossible so there was no way to prove or disprove whose ashes the family got, but discovery revealed a lot of inconsistencies with the company’s internal documents. On the eve of trial, the mortuary offered $150,000 to settle the case. Their argument was essentially: the young man had already passed away and any additional emotional distress regarding after-death care wasn’t worth that much. A prominent San Diego mediator urged Marcereau to take the $150,000 offer, reminding him of how conservative the San Diego jury pool is. The jury ended up awarding a $1.4 million verdict and his client collected every cent. 

“It was a really satisfying win for some wonderful people. I had the privilege of getting to know them over the course of a few years, and they’ve adopted me as an honorary member of their family,” Marcereau says.

The personal touch is not just to provide a sympathetic ear or emotional comfort. Often, such intimate contact with the family or individual person leads to case-making discoveries. Marcereau says, “I will meet my clients at their home, I’ll spend a lot of time with them. We’ll share meals and I will really listen to them. It’s usually only after several meetings that they start to open up and I’ll learn things that are so valuable to the case—little stories or anecdotes or a detail that will really resonate with the jury. I can’t overstate how important it is to get to know your client—it not only benefits them emotionally but ultimately benefits their case.” 

From Big Firm Business Litigator to Headline-Making Trial Lawyer

Marcereau never had an “ah-ha” moment in which he realized the drive to become a personal injury lawyer. The move was perhaps telegraphed by his enjoyment of competitive sports and public speaking in high school.

The choice of careers evolved during his college years. He graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and chose to earn his Juris Doctor at USC Law School, where he paid his own way. Heavily in debt upon graduation, he joined a big law firm to repay those student loans. 

“Although I excelled at the firm and liked my colleagues, I was working insane hours for big corporate clients on cases which, in the grand scheme of things, didn’t really make a difference to anyone’s life. It was a pretty depressing existence for me.” 

He eventually made partner, but that achievement brought very little real satisfaction. After ten years, he decided to start his own firm, representing individuals and families in personal injury. “It was a complete 180 in my career and a big risk, but it paid off. I’ve never been more satisfied or happier in my job. I love what I do.”

His first trial was genuinely a landmark case that made national headlines. He represented a volunteer at an elementary school in Irvine named Kelli Peters. She was framed for crimes she didn’t commit by two very prominent lawyers in Orange County—Kent and Jill Easter. The couple planted drugs in Peter’s car—a plastic baggie of marijuana, Percocet, Vicodin, and a pipe. They called the police from a payphone using a phony accent to try to disguise their involvement. 

Peters, called “the PTA mom everybody knew” by the local media, was detained at the school by police for more than two hours while they investigated. Although the police quickly figured out it was a set-up, Peters and her family were publicly humiliated by the ordeal. 

The challenge in that case was getting the jury to understand how the damage was more than the effects of a two-hour detainment. The family suffered fear and embarrassment for almost an entire year until the Easters were tracked down and arrested. Marcereau won a $5.7 million jury verdict against the Easters. The case was on the cover of the LA Times, was on Good Morning America, and even Dr. Phil. It is being made into a movie with Julia Roberts starring as Peters. 

Marcereau and Peters remain friends to this day. When asked about Marcereau, Peters was effusive in her praise:

“I was a victim of the craziest crime you will ever hear. I was stalked, harassed, and tormented by a woman, who then talked her attorney husband into planting drugs in my car and trying to set me up at my daughter’s school and the place I volunteered every day. These people were actually both attorneys, and they were out to get me. Rob was recommended by a friend, and he stepped in to help me without hesitation. He consulted me through a criminal trial the DA brought against these people and then I hired him to be my civil attorney to go after these people, who were found guilty of multiple felonies, for emotional and punitive damages. After an epic civil trial, where Rob was absolutely brilliant, he won a multi-million-dollar award for me and my family. I can’t say enough good things about Rob. He is, in my eyes, not only a great attorney, but my hero.”

Experiences with such victims developed a commitment to go the distance for his clients regardless of the challenges. Opposing counsel knows up front that when facing Marcereau Law Group, the firm is not intimidated by the size of the opposition nor has the slightest hesitation about going to court. Marcereau says that they often see value in cases that other attorneys don’t. Many of their seven-figure verdicts were obtained after low six-figure offers by the defense.

“There’s nothing like going to trial. I love speaking to a jury and persuading them to my side. In a way, it’s a bit like show business or performance art. The best part, though, is being there with your client and fighting for them. It creates a bond like nothing else.” 

Throwing a “Hail Mary” Pass

An example of just how dedicated and just how far Marcereau and his staff will go to protect a client involves a genuine investigative “Hail Mary pass.” A client showed up around a year and a half after he had suffered a serious motorcycle accident. A truck had dropped a metal scaffolding on the highway that caused him to crash. He almost lost his leg. Unfortunately, the truck never stopped and there were no identifying marks on the scaffolding other than the letters “KON.”

Marcereau’s firm didn’t even have the scaffolding to examine—just a cell phone picture of it. Marcereau’s team ran an exhaustive search for any construction companies named KON or with those initials but came up empty. There was urgency to the case because the two-year statute was looming. That’s when Marcereau threw the “Hail Mary pass” by posting an ad on Craigslist offering $10,000 for any information leading to the culprit. 

The firm was inundated with responses—most of them crackpots. Marcereau noticed one that looked promising. A person emailed and said he thought it might be a roofing company near his home named “Konrad Roofing.” Marcereau drove to their facility and looked around trying to find other scaffoldings with “KON” on them. He struck out. With the statute looming, this was his best lead. In fact, it was his only lead. So, he filed a lawsuit and acted as though he knew for a fact that Konrad Roofing was responsible. He fully expected an angry letter from opposing counsel threatening malicious prosecution. It never came.

Marcereau then sent Requests for Admission to Konrad Roofing, asking them to admit that they owned the scaffolding and that one of their drivers had dropped it. Once again, Marcereau expected denials. Instead, they admitted it was them, and later paid their entire $1M commercial policy to settle the case. The settlement was life changing for his client.