Stephen M. Garcia represents victims of elder and nursing home abuse and is known as one of the leading civil litigators in the country. He is Senior Partner at Garcia & Artigliere, where the firm’s practice is focused on elder abuse, nursing home abuse, and wrongful death of the elderly.
Serving Los Angeles County and other cities nationwide, Garcia has served as counsel in litigation leading to over $3 billion in compensation awarded to afflicted parties and consumers across the United States. These cases involved insurance bad faith, medical malpractice, elder abuse, nursing home abuse, and products liability.
Garcia received his Bachelor’s degree in 1982 from Loyola Marymount University and his Juris Doctorate degree from Loyola University in 1985.
Prior to becoming a civil trial lawyer in 1993, Garcia was a criminal trial lawyer. The Law Offices of Stephen M. Garcia, founded in 1987, was purchased by the nationally-recognized elder abuse and nursing home abuse litigation boutique firm Wilkes & McHugh in 2001. Garcia served as Wilkes & McHugh’s managing attorney for the western United States for 2 years prior to returning to his own firm in April 2003.
Garcia’s nationwide practice grew rapidly with elder abuse, nursing home abuse, truck accidents, and wrongful death cases litigated across the country. As his practice grew, in addition to the California office, Garcia opened new offices in Arizona, Washington, Florida, Arkansas, and Kentucky.
Garcia has concentrated on his civil trial practice since 1993, following 9 years of focusing on criminal trial advocacy. He has served as lead counsel on behalf of disenfranchised consumers in cases including, insurance bad faith, medical malpractice, elder abuse, nursing home abuse, and products liability. Garcia served as counsel in class actions brought on behalf of consumers against such major diverse corporations as Allstate Insurance Company, Tenet Healthcare, Pennzoil, Medtronics, Hewlett Packard, Countrywide Home Loans, Sun Healthcare Corporation, The County of Los Angeles, Sony, British Airways United Airlines, Motorola, State Farm Insurance Company, and AT&T. Garcia has also served as a staunch defender for those companies who hold themselves up to the highest ideals of service and wish to work towards the absolute best practices to provide quality service to those whom they serve.
Garcia has served as lead class counsel in the nationally-certified class actions Morgan v. Medtronics and In Re Bluetooth; as well as serving as lead counsel in the California action certified for class approval effecting the lives of over 22,000 elder and infirm California residents in Smietana v. Pleasant Care et al.; lead counsel in the California action certified for class approval effecting the lives of over 25,000 elder and infirm California residents in Benkle v. Longwood; lead counsel in the California action certified for class approval effecting the lives of over 35,000 elder and infirm California residents in Williamson v. Ensign Group; lead counsel in the California action certified for class approval effecting over 4,000 elder and infirm adults in California and another 2,000 in Oregon in In Re Sunwest Healthcare; as lead class counsel in the California action certified for class approval effecting over 2,000 elder and infirm adults in California In Re Sun Mar and as class settlement counsel for fraudulent practices by AOL and Best Buy in a national class action settlement entitled Gergel v. AOL, as well as being named to the executive committee of a national class actions including Obi v. Hewlett Packard, In Re Imphonics (rebate fraud venued in Washington D.C.), and In Re AT&T, to name a few.
Garcia is admitted to practice in all State Courts of California, Washington, Texas, Arizona, and Kentucky as well as in the United States District Court for the Northern, Southern, Central, and Eastern Districts of California, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, the United States District Court for Arizona, and the Ninth Circuit.
Garcia has served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Consumer Attorneys of California and the Board of Governors of Consumer Attorneys of Los Angeles.
Garcia and his firm have been recognized by peers and others with numerous awards and accolades through the years, including:
