Carl E. Douglas

Carl E. Douglas is in private practice at The Douglas Firm in Beverly Hills. Among his many honors is his being named the Trial Lawyer of the Year for 2006 by the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, the largest local association of plaintiffs’ attorneys in the Untied States. The Association educates, connects, assists, and advocates for its nearly 3,000 members.

Mr. Douglas is the former Managing Attorney at the Law Offices of Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. where he was employed for over eleven years until opening his own practice in March 1998. Although he is perhaps best known for his successful work as the Coordinator of O.J. Simpson’s criminal defense team, Mr. Douglas now represents plaintiffs in state and federal courts in his diverse civil litigation practice.

While he was employed at Mr. Cochran’s offices, Mr. Douglas represented scores of clients and tried dozens of cases to verdict, in a wide array of personal injury, civil rights, and criminal law matters

Since opening his own firm, Mr. Douglas has enjoyed unprecedented success as well. In July 1999, he represented the lead plaintiff in Patricia Anderson v. General Motors Corporation, a product liability trial where the jury returned a $4.9 billion dollar verdict, which was then the largest personal injury verdict ever awarded in United States history.

In 1994 and again in 1999, Mr. Douglas was honored as the “Loren Miller Lawyer of the Year” by the John M. Langston Bar Association. He became only the second attorney in the more than 75 year history of that Association to be awarded that coveted honor twice.

Prior to joining Mr. Cochran’s office, Mr. Douglas was employed from 1981 through 1987 as a trial attorney at the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Los Angeles, where he represented indigent defendants charged with various federal crimes including bank robbery, drug possession, and white collar fraud. He began his legal career in 1980 working at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C. analyzing tariff changes filed by various satellite companies in the Commission’s Common Carrier Bureau.

Mr. Douglas earned his undergraduate degree in political science in 1977 from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and his law degree in 1980 from the Boalt Hall School of Law, at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a frequent lecturer at community based and legal seminars across the country and has served as a legal commentator on various radio and television programs throughout the nation.