How CAOC Protects Your Practice and Clients

Consumer Attorneys of California is the only statewide organization that represents your interests at the state Capitol. Your experienced, talented and highly respected advocacy team works with legislators to pass laws that protect your practice and your clients and, just as important, to defeating proposed legislation that would harm you.

They do a superb job of both. But they can't do it without the resources provided by CAOC members.

Just in the past couple of years, your CAOC advocates have:

Kept an initiative to cap contingency fees off the 2024 ballot

Passed legislation to:

• Increase the MICRA limits on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases
• Increase auto insurance financial responsibility limits
• Allow non-economic damages to survive death
• Create a two-year statute of limitations for civil cases
• Allow remote hearings
• Limit depositions to seven hours

Stopped efforts to:

• Require disclosure of all plaintiff litigation funding contracts
• Reduce rideshare insurance requirements
• Immunize utilities like PG&E for damages caused by fires they spark
• Allow the State Bar to authorize non-attorneys, AI and apps to practice law

And the fight never ends. Here are just a few of the numerous current efforts to cripple your practice that CAOC's advocates are opposing:

• a cap on non-economic damages against public entities (3x economic damages or $1 million, whichever is LESS)
• a "loser pays" attorney fee law in all California cases
• limiting homeowners' rights in construction defect cases
• mandatory mediation of cases valued under $150,000
• reducing employees' rights relative to overtime
• immunizing "agritourism" businesses such as pumpkin patches or u-pic farms from civil liability
• overturning the Dynamex case related to independent contractors

A strong, vibrant CAOC membership is essential to ensuring that California trial lawyers and their clients have a strong voice at the Capitol. If you are already a CAOC member, thank you for your support! If you're a plaintiffs attorney who is not yet a member, please consider joining today.