V. James DeSimone Law

Focus and practice areas

Based in Marina Del Rey, California, the firm works across three fields: employment law, civil rights, and personal injury. Each one puts the firm on the side of an individual facing an employer, a public agency, or another party. The employment side is the widest of the three.

On employment matters, the firm handles wrongful termination, wage and hour class actions, workplace discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, and whistleblower claims. The civil rights work centers on police misconduct, excessive force, false arrest, and cases that involve injured protesters. On the personal injury side, the firm takes wrongful death, brain injury, school negligence, and car accident claims. In my opinion the three fields reinforce each other, since a civil rights claim and an injury claim can grow from one event.

All three fields share a common client: the person bringing the claim. The firm represents employees against employers, individuals against public agencies, and injured people against those it holds responsible. That plaintiff-side focus is steady across the practice areas the firm names, and it shapes the kind of work the team takes on.

How the team is built

V. James DeSimone founded the firm and works as its principal attorney. He practices civil rights and employment law in the Los Angeles area. He was lead trial counsel in Xue Lu et al. v. United States, and he represents the family of Brendon Glenn in a wrongful death case against the City of Los Angeles.

The attorney roster lists DeSimone with Carmen Sabater, Kaveh Navab, Ryann E. Hall, Melika Amini, Ashly Villa-Ortega, and Emma Lingel Gary. Four paralegals work with the attorneys: Mariah Taylor, Teri Reeves, Kendy Camacho, and Kimberly Medina. That count of seven attorneys and four paralegals gives a sense of how the firm staffs a matter.

The firm says that when it accepts a case, the client can reach the attorney handling it. As a reviewer, I read that as a helpful detail for anyone weighing a smaller firm against a larger one, because contact with the named lawyer is part of what a small team can offer. A team of this size can assign a lead attorney while paralegals handle the supporting record, which keeps one point of contact for the client.

What the record shows

The firm reports two results on its home page. One is a $4 million settlement in the Brendon Glenn wrongful death case, a claim brought against the City of Los Angeles. The other is a $2.1 million jury verdict in Alicia Benham v. Walgreens, where DeSimone was lead trial counsel.

Both results came through litigation. The Glenn matter produced a settlement on a filed wrongful death claim, and the Benham matter produced a verdict returned by a jury. The firm presents these two figures as examples of its work in civil rights and at trial.

A verdict and a settlement reach a result in different ways. A settlement is an agreement the parties accept, often after negotiation, while a verdict is a decision a jury returns after a trial. The presence of both in the firm's reported results points to work that can move through talks and, when needed, through a full trial.

What a civil rights or employment case involves

Civil rights claims

A police misconduct claim under California law usually starts with a government claim filed against the agency, and a civil suit follows if that claim is denied. Excessive force cases often turn on a single encounter, so records, video, and witness accounts carry the argument. False arrest claims ask whether officers had cause to detain someone, which puts the timeline of an incident at the center. Cases against a city or county also raise immunity questions, which is one reason this work often needs a lawyer used to suing public bodies.

Employment claims

A wrongful termination or discrimination claim in California often begins with an administrative complaint to a state agency, which can issue a right-to-sue notice before a lawsuit. Wage and hour class actions group many workers with the same claim into one case, and they often turn on time records and pay policies. Whistleblower and retaliation claims ask whether an employer punished someone for a protected act.

Sexual harassment and workplace discrimination claims often rest on a pattern of conduct, so dates, messages, and personnel records matter. Retaliation claims connect a protected act, such as a complaint, to an adverse step by the employer, such as a firing or a demotion. Because these claims share facts, one client may bring several of them together in a single case.

These paths explain why the firm keeps both attorneys and paralegals on staff. Discovery in this work can be heavy, and paralegal effort on documents and records supports the attorneys who argue a matter. In my opinion the mix of employment and civil rights work under one roof suits a client whose complaint crosses both fields.

How injury and wrongful death claims proceed

The personal injury side of the firm covers wrongful death, brain injury, school negligence, and car accident claims. A wrongful death claim lets close family members recover for the loss of a relative, and it runs on proof of fault and proof of harm. Brain injury cases lean on medical experts, since the extent of an injury shapes the value of the claim. School negligence claims ask whether a school met its duty to keep a student safe.

Car accident claims usually start with insurance, and many resolve before a suit is filed. When an insurer and a claimant cannot agree, the matter can move to court, where evidence of fault and the cost of care decides the outcome. A firm that also handles civil rights work can spot when a single event, such as a police stop that ends in injury, supports claims in more than one field. That overlap is part of why a firm with both practice areas can help when one event raises questions in law and in medicine at once.

Reach and standing in Southern California

The firm serves clients across Southern California and names Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Bernardino County among the areas it covers. It states more than 40 years of experience representing people whose employment or civil rights have been violated. The site does not list a specific founding year, so the four decades are the measure the firm gives for its history.

DeSimone's own case history links the firm to public Los Angeles litigation, including the Xue Lu et al. v. United States trial. Claims against a government body tend to draw wider notice, which places some of the firm's civil rights work in view of the public. The firm lists a presence on Facebook and LinkedIn, along with an X account under the handle vjdesimonelaw.