Lawrence R. Booth
Lawrence R. Booth graduated first among day students from the University of Southern California in 1959, having served as Editor-in-Chief of the USC Law Review. He gained substantial trial experience with the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office for two years and then went on to concentrate in the field of personal injury and wrongful death with the law firm of Silver & McWilliams (which later became Silver, McWilliams & Booth).
During his 20 years with Silver, McWilliams & Booth, Lawrence Booth was the lead trial lawyer in hundreds of cases, with major concentration in the field of construction accidents and products liability. In 1972, he became the fourth attorney in California, and among a select few in the country, to obtain a million dollar verdict in a personal injury case. In 1973, he was elected to the Inner Circle of Advocates. This national organization is limited to 100 of the finest trial lawyers in the United States, only a handful of whom are in California. There are no other Inner Circle members in the South Bay.
In 1974, Lawrence Booth became the first permanent Editor-in-Chief of the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Association publication, The Advocate. After four years, he relinquished that post to become the president of the organization. The Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Association (now known as the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles) includes over 2,000 attorneys practicing in the personal injury field in the greater Los Angeles area. In 1997, the organization nominated Mr. Booth (along with colleague Richard Koskoff) as "Trial Lawyer of the Year."
In 1984, Lawrence Booth founded the law firm of Lawrence R. Booth, Inc. in the historic Iowa Courthouse Building in Torrance, California. This building was moved brick by brick from Council Bluffs, Iowa and stands as a unique landmark in Southern California. Later, the firm became Booth & Koskoff, still headquartered in Torrance, but with of counsel affiliations and referral arrangements with dozens of personal injury firms in Southern California.
During his four decades of practice, Lawrence Booth has been a prolific author. His articles on personal injury practice regularly appear in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the primary legal newspaper in the State of California. For fifteen years, he has published a monthly column entitled "Tort Tactics" in the Barristers Bulletin of the South Bay Bar Association. Mr. Booth has appeared as a guest lecturer at dozens of personal injury seminars throughout California and for civic and professional organizations.
In 1995, Mr. Lawrence Booth was the subject of a "Litigator Profile" in the Daily Journal (the leading legal newspaper in California).
Richard B. Koskoff
Richard B. Koskoff graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara as a Dean's Honor Student in 1968. He attended law school at the University of California at Davis from 1969 to 1972, representing UC Davis at the renowned California State Moot Court Finals in 1972. Shortly after graduation, Richard Koskoff embarked on his litigation-oriented career and became one of the head trial attorneys for the City of Los Angeles in prosecuting drunk driving cases.
During the 1970's, Richard Koskoff was an avant-garde litigator, representing the City in cases against environmental offenders. He was ahead of his time in protecting consumer rights and prosecuted numerous cases involving consumer rights violations and false advertising. After leaving the City Attorney's Office, Richard Koskoff opened his own criminal defense practice. As a criminal defense lawyer, he had a very successful trial record, including successfully defending a number of high profile cases.
In the mid-1980's, Richard Koskoff joined Lawrence Booth and has since concentrated on representing clients who have suffered serious and lifelong personal injuries, including the wrongful death of loved ones. He has obtained numerous million dollar and multi-million dollar results, including an astounding $16.5 million verdict in 1997, in an extremely difficult trial where the defendant had not offered any money to settle the case prior to trial. In a 1998 trial in which he handled the damages issues, Mr. Richard Koskoff obtained a $1.6 million verdict, setting a record for the highest hand injury verdict in Orange County history. Also in 1998, he settled an injury case for $9 million, which tied the record for the highest settlement ever paid by the City of L.A. In two of his recent cases, where the verdicts were in excess of a million dollars, the jury took the almost unheard of action of rendering monetary awards, which were higher than the amounts the plaintiffs demanded in trial.
In 1997, Mr. Richard Koskoff was one of 11 attorneys to be nominated by the Consumer Attorney Association of Los Angeles as "Trial Lawyer of the Year." He is a repeated guest speaker and lecturer for various organizations and participates in the continuing legal education of lawyers as an invited speaker for the State Bar of California. Mr. Richard Koskoff has published numerous articles on the subjects of trial tactics and personal injury practice.
In 1997, Mr. Richard Koskoff was the subject of a "Litigator Profile" in the Daily Journal (the leading legal newspaper in California).
Roger E. Booth
Since graduating from one of the top law schools in the country in 1991, Roger E. Booth has handled numerous large, complex cases, representing plaintiffs and defendants, and both individuals and corporations, throughout California. He has extensive jury trial experience and has developed particular expertise in products liability, construction accidents and insurance bad faith.
In 1987, Roger Booth graduated with honors from Pomona College (one of the top handful of liberal arts colleges in the U.S.) with a degree in English Literature. During his senior year, he spent a semester studying at Oxford University in England. He went on to attend Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California-Berkeley, which is ranked consistently among the top seven law schools in the country. At Boalt, in addition to excelling in his academic courses, Mr. Booth gained practical legal experience representing numerous low-income clients in both civil and criminal matters.
After graduating from Boalt in 1991, Mr. Roger Booth became an associate with Pillsbury Madison & Sutro, the largest law firm in California. At Pillsbury, he represented large corporations in a wide range of substantial litigation matters, specializing in insurance coverage and bad faith cases, and obtained extensive trial experience. Among the cases he handled was an insurance bad faith case against three of the largest insurance companies in the U.S., which resulted in settlements and a verdict for his client totaling over $11 million. In 1996, Roger Booth took a leave of absence from Pillsbury to work as a deputy public defender in San Francisco, gaining valuable jury trial experience handling criminal matters.
Mr. Roger Booth joined Booth & Koskoff in 1997 and, since then, has handled a variety of personal injury, wrongful death and insurance bad faith cases. In September 1998, in just his second personal injury trial, he (along with Richard Koskoff) obtained a $1.6 million verdict, establishing a new record for a hand injury case in Orange County. As a result of that verdict, Roger Booth was featured in a profile in the Daily Journal (the leading legal newspaper in California).
Roger Booth has published articles on the subjects of construction accident law, defective air bags and insurance bad faith. In July 2006 he was named Member of the Month by the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles.
Amy S. Niven
Amy S. Niven has been part of the Booth & Koskoff team for many years, first as a law clerk and now as an attorney, and she has obtained a great deal of experience in all aspects of personal injury litigation.
Ms. Niven received a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from UCLA in 1999. During her collegiate years, in addition to maintaining outstanding grades, she was a standout on the UCLA diving team, winning the Pacific 10 Conference 3-meter title in 1996 and earning All-American honors.
After college graduation, she worked as a law clerk at Booth & Koskoff for three years, playing a critical role in preparing many cases for trial and working very closely with clients. She then entered Southwestern Law School, where she competed in Moot Court and was active in the Women’s Law Association. During law school, she continued to work as a law clerk for Booth & Koskoff and did an internship with the Long Beach City Attorney’s office, gaining valuable courtroom experience. Ms. Niven also worked as a research assistant for Professor Robert C. Lind and contributed significantly to his widely-used treatise on entertainment law.
Since graduating from Southwestern in 2005, Ms. Niven has worked as an attorney at Booth & Koskoff and has handled a variety of different types of cases, with a particular emphasis on elder abuse and medical malpractice.