Ratto Law Firm, P.C.

Focus and practice areas

Workers' compensation is the one field this firm works in. The firm says it handles nothing else, and the case list on its site stays inside that boundary. Those cases include construction injuries, knee, shoulder, and back injuries, brain and head injuries, and traumatic heart claims.

The work also covers accidents involving work vehicles and, in the hardest situations, work-related death. The firm takes on denied workers' compensation claims and claims where the employer carried no insurance. In my opinion, that last pair matters, because a denial or a missing insurer is often where an injured worker gets stuck.

How these claims proceed

Workers' compensation in California is a no-fault system, so an injured worker can claim benefits without proving the employer was careless. Those benefits can cover medical treatment, a share of lost wages, and permanent disability payments once a doctor rates the injury. The case types the firm names, whether a construction fall, a back injury, or a head injury, each carry their own medical questions about how the harm is measured. That measurement often decides what a claim is worth.

A denied claim in California still has a path forward. The worker can ask for a hearing before the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board, where a judge weighs medical evidence and testimony. Claims against an uninsured employer run through a separate state fund set up for that purpose. Both routes turn on records, filing deadlines, and hearings, and both sit inside the work the firm names.

How the team is built

Anthony G. Ratto founded the firm and is its president. He represents injured clients in workers' compensation and personal injury cases, and he has argued in jury and bench trials. The firm around him now includes several attorneys and a hearing representative, each named with a bio on the about page.

A pattern runs through those bios. Several of the attorneys began their careers on the defense side, acting for insurance carriers, self-insured companies, and public agencies. Brian A. Kreft, who manages the Concord office, worked for insurance carriers and public entities before the Appeals Board earlier on. Michael R. Lamb defended cases for insurance companies and third party administrators, then moved to representing injured people. Alexander J. Ratto spent a year at a workers' compensation defense firm before he finished law school.

As a reviewer, I read that history as useful context, since attorneys who once argued the carrier's side know how those arguments get built. John Miller adds a long record of his own, with 51 years representing employers and carriers, plus work as an arbitrator, mediator, and Pro Tem Judge. Thurman J. Martin, a hearing representative, has litigated workers' compensation and Social Security Disability matters across Northern California for more than 30 years.

Where the attorneys trained

The about page names law schools for part of the team. Brett Gowen, who manages the Sacramento office, was born and raised in California's Central Valley, studied at UC Davis, and earned his law degree with distinction from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. Hazel Mendoza earned her J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law, where she held a Dean's Scholarship, was a Public Interest Scholar, and received a CALI Award. Francisco E. Moreno studied law at UC Davis and represented low income clients at its Immigration Law Clinic. Alexander J. Ratto graduated from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 2019.

Reach across Northern California

The firm lists five offices in addition to its Oakland base. Those offices sit in Alameda, Concord, Sacramento, San Jose, and Salinas. That spread puts the firm within reach of workers across the Bay Area and up toward the Sacramento region.

A Spanish-speaking team is available, which the firm notes on its home page. For a worker whose first language is Spanish, that can decide whether a claim gets explained clearly from the start. In my opinion, language access is an ordinary detail that carries real weight in this field.

What a single focus can mean for a claim

A firm that works only in workers' compensation meets the same board, the same judges, and the same medical-legal steps week after week. That repetition builds familiarity with how local practice runs at the Appeals Board offices where these cases are heard. The firm spreads that work across managing attorneys in Concord and Sacramento and associates who appear across California.

The team also mixes backgrounds that fit the process. Some attorneys came from the defense side and know the carrier's playbook. Others, like Hazel Mendoza and Francisco E. Moreno, brought public-interest and clinic experience into the firm. That mix suits a caseload that lives inside one area of law.

What the record shows

According to the firm, its attorneys hold more than 150 years of combined experience. The firm also states that it has recovered over $1 billion for injured workers. Both figures come from the firm's own home page and site data, and I read them as the firm's claims.

The plainer, checkable parts of the record are the founding year and the single focus. The firm has stayed with workers' compensation since 1984, which puts about four decades behind that one choice.

Additional professional experience

Brian A. Kreft's career began with plaintiff representation in personal injury and real property matters. He later moved into workers' compensation. That sequence gives his biography a broader civil-law foundation before his work became concentrated on workplace claims.

Michael R. Lamb has appeared before Workers' Compensation Appeals Boards throughout California. His work outside individual cases includes a presentation to the San Francisco Industrial Claims Association. He has also trained out-of-state adjusters on the handling of workers' compensation claims. I find those details useful because they show experience with both formal proceedings and professional instruction.

John Miller has worked as an expert witness in matters involving workers' compensation insurance and self-insurance. His biography also identifies service as a private judge. These roles add a technical insurance component to his long career and place part of his work outside direct representation of a party.

Thurman J. Martin began his career in his family's law firm. That practice operated from 1994 until August 2023, and he also worked for several other firms during that period. His biography therefore ties much of his professional history to a family practice while recording experience in other legal offices.

Connections to the Bay Area

Two attorney biographies provide personal ties to the region. Francisco E. Moreno was raised in the Bay Area, while Alexander J. Ratto grew up in the Northern Bay Area. Alexander Ratto earned a bachelor's degree in Environmental Science from Santa Clara University in 2015, with a minor in Biology, before attending law school.

The firm's registered Oakland address is One Kaiser Plaza, Suite 240. The record also gives a central telephone number, 888-413-8068. Together, those details identify the formal Oakland contact point rather than merely naming the city.

Occupational disease matters

The directory record places occupational disease in its own practice category. That designation is worth noting because it identifies a type of workers' compensation matter apart from the traumatic injuries listed in the firm's overview. For a reader comparing firms by claim type, the category confirms that Ratto Law Firm includes occupational disease within its stated practice scope.