Litigation
Jun. 15, 2002
'Gladiator Mentality'
Top 30 Women Litigators - Cynthia R. Chihak - When Cynthia R. Chihak went to law school, she remembers, only 5 percent of her class was female.
Cynthia R. Chihak
When Cynthia R. Chihak went to law school, she remembers, only 5 percent of her class was female.
"Today, it's more like 50 percent," she says, "but anyone who says it isn't significant being a woman in this field is wrong."
Chihak, 49, graduated from Pepperdine University law school in 1977 and worked for a firm for just two years before she moved to San Diego and started her own practice, Chihak & Associates.
"I don't think women by nature are gamblers or real risk takers, but that's something you have to do when you're a plaintiffs' attorney," she says.
She certainly has lived by that rule.
Chihak has used what she calls her "gladiator mentality" to win major verdicts in medical malpractice and personal injury cases.
In the early 1990s on the first medical malpractice case she tried, Chihak won $661,000 for her client, a woman who had breast reduction surgery and claimed the doctor removed more tissue than was necessary. The jury found the doctor guilty of battery, in addition to negligence. Szkorla v. Vecchione, 519171 (San Diego Super. Ct., verdict 1989).
"Sometimes in this business, you're able to help change people's lives," Chihak says. "If you have a baby with a significant birth defect or an adult who becomes brain damaged, you can make sure they have standard medical care or even better, state-of-the-art, for the rest of their lives."
Just a few weeks ago, Chihak won $3.61 million for her client, a woman who was not warned of possible blood clotting from medicine she was taking following a hysterectomy and subsequently lost all but 18 inches of her small bowel. It was Chihak's biggest verdict yet. Mercado v. Southern California Permanente Medical Group (San Diego arbitration, Arbitrator Judge Alice D. Sullivan, award May 13, 2002).
Christina Landers
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