Michelle L. Gershen

Insurance Companies Once Had Michelle L. Gershen on Their Side—Injured People Do Now

Before Michelle L. Gershen began asking insurers and businesses to compensate injured people, she defended the companies facing those claims. This was not a brief stop on a résumé. It was years spent watching injury cases be investigated, valued, challenged, and tried—and learning which facts could move a claim forward and which weaknesses could cause it to collapse.

Her courtroom record from that period shows what the work actually involved. In O’Connor v. Beachfront II, LP, the plaintiff demanded $5 million in a personal-injury and negligence lawsuit. Gershen represented the defense, and after a six-day trial, the jury returned a complete defense verdict. In Harvey v. Ridgecrest Community, LLC, her clients prevailed after a nine-day hearing involving an injury claim, and the judgment was later affirmed by the California Court of Appeal.

Those victories matter to her present clients because Gershen has personally seen how the other side searches for uncertainty. She knows what happens when medical evidence is incomplete, responsibility remains unclear, or the effect of an injury has not been convincingly documented. She does not have to imagine how a defense lawyer might attack a claim. She once stood in that lawyer’s place.

In 2014, she founded Gershen Law and changed who she was fighting for. Her San Diego practice now represents people injured in vehicle collisions, dangerous-property incidents, construction accidents, and other serious events. The results associated with the practice include a $10 million burn-injury recovery, a $9.5 million recovery involving quadriplegia after a fall, and additional multimillion-dollar results arising from construction, motorcycle, tractor-trailer, and van-rollover accidents.

The switch from defense work to representing injured people is only part of what distinguishes the practice. Gershen also kept the office personal. The attorney a client meets during the initial consultation remains the attorney handling the case through settlement or trial. Clients are not moved between junior associates, case managers, and unfamiliar departments while trying to determine who is responsible for an important decision.

That direct relationship has practical value. The lawyer evaluating the claim also hears how the injury changed the client’s work, independence, health, and family life. Important details do not have to pass through several people before reaching the person responsible for building the case. When an insurance company disputes the claim or minimizes its value, Gershen already understands both the evidence being questioned and the person affected by that decision.

Her perfect 5.0-star Google rating across 62 reviews adds public support to that model. Published client accounts describe an attorney who returns calls herself, explains what is happening, keeps clients involved, and remains available when questions arise. One client who had previously worked with three attorneys described the experience as an entirely new standard of representation.

Insurance companies once trusted Michelle Gershen to find the weaknesses in injury claims. Today, injured people hire her to make sure those weaknesses are addressed before the other side can use them. For consumers who want experienced opposition to an insurer without surrendering the personal relationship with their attorney, that combination is difficult to overlook.

That combination of experience, reputation, verified professional standing, and public credibility is why Michelle L. Gershen was included on FreddieFender.com.