Michael has been a trial lawyer for over 50 years. He began his legal career as a prosecutor for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office where he honed his trial advocacy skills. Within three years, Michael opened his own private litigation practice representing victims in criminal defense, personal injury and other areas of litigation. He is uniquely successful handling personal injury matters because of his experience gained as an award-winning insurance adjustor for a major auto insurance company.
As a result of Michael’s background and knowledge, his ability in representing injured victims is quite extensive. He has been listed on AVVO (the largest attorney rating source) as the #9 lawyer on their All Time Leaderboard for legal advice in personal injury law and has answered over 3,000 questions as a personal injury attorney by AVVO. Michael has been licensed to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court for the past 40 years.
Michael has successfully tried over 100 cases in a variety of areas of law and has settled countless cases against major corporations, insurance companies, municipalities and other public entities. More recently, he obtained a 1.25 million dollar settlement in a wrongful death motorcycle accident case; $1.1 million dollar settlement in a student bullying case where the highest offer made by the defense prior to mediation was less than $100k.
Michael has served as a private mediator and panel arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association, and as judge pro tem. He has also been retained as a special contract attorney for the City of Santa Monica where he handled selected litigation and appeals. Over the years, Michael’s practice has expanded into other areas, including employee rights and labor law. Moreover, in the past year alone, he has successfully settled dozens of wage and hour class actions and cases on behalf of employees terminated due to their pregnancy, disabilities, race, and for reporting whistleblower activities to their employer. In 2015, Mike was appointed to be a Board Member of Law360’s Employment Law Editorial Advisory Committee.
Mike has been “of counsel” to Crosner Legal since the firm’s inception and directly participates in wage and hour class and representative actions, individual discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits, and consumer & privacy class cases. Mike has been responsible as lead counsel or co-lead counsel for prosecuting hundreds of wage & hour and other class/representative actions in both federal and state courts throughout California.
Mike is also a dedicated to using his legal skills and experience to assist the less fortunate whenever possible. Throughout his career, Mike has volunteered to perform pro bono legal representation for those unable to afford legal counsel, and has been a court appointed counsel in numerous cases for indigent individuals.