Steven Kazan, Founder and Senior Principal
Attorney Steven Kazan has been working in the area of asbestos litigation for more than 50 years. In 1974, he filed his first case on behalf of a victim of asbestos exposure and has since advocated on behalf of thousands of injured workers and their family members. Mr. Kazan has committed the majority of his legal practice to representing the rights of workers who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma in third-party asbestos litigation (cases filed against distributors, manufacturers, contractors, and premises owners).
In addition to his work as a plaintiff's attorney in asbestos litigation, Mr. Kazan has also been nominated by the U.S. Trustee and appointed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to represent victims in proceedings related to almost all bankruptcy reorganizations related to asbestos litigation. Four large, rich companies completely able to pay all their victims in full yet have manipulated the bankruptcy laws to try avoiding responsibility:
Also, including those involving:
- ABB Lummus Global
- ABB Lummus and Combustion Engineering (Chair)
- AC and S
- Amatex
- Armstrong World Industries (AWI)
- ARTRA
- Babcock & Wilcox
- The Budd Company
- Carey Canada
- Celotex
- Combustion Engineering
- Congoleum
- DII
- DBMP(formerly CertainTeed)
- Energy Future Holdings [EECI/Ebasco]
- Federal-Mogul
- Flintkote Company (Chair)
- G-I Holdings
- Garlock - (Co-Chair)
- H.K. Porter
- Kaiser Aluminum - (Co-Chair)
- Leslie Controls - (Chair)
- MLC (formerly General Motors)
- The Muralo Company
- North American Refractories Company (NARCO) - (Co-Chair)
- Owens Corning/Fibreboard
- Pittsburgh Corning Trust (PCC)
- Plibrico
- Special Electric
- T H Agriculture & Nutrition (THAN)
- Thomas Dee Engineering - (Chair)
- T&N
- U.S. Gypsum
- W.R. Grace
In the majority of cases where the court allowed reorganization, Mr. Kazan, has been approved by the court to represent victims through the Trustees' Advisory Committee.
At the 2017 Consumer Attorneys of California Convention, Mr. Kazan was presented with the Edward I. Pollock Award. This award is given in recognition of many years of dedication, outstanding efforts and effectiveness on behalf of the causes and ideals of consumer attorneys.
For more than four decades, Mr. Kazan has acted as speaker, lecturer, moderator, participant, and program chairman at various medical, legal, and insurance conferences and seminars focusing on mass torts, toxic torts, and asbestos throughout the world. In addition, he has testified before and lobbied Congress on behalf of asbestos victims and testified before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees on asbestos litigation and legislation.
Before he founded his firm in Oakland in 1974, Mr. Kazan was an Assistant to the General Counsel of the Interstate Commerce Commission in Washington, D.C. (1967-1969); an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of California (1969-1971); and an associate at Werchick & Werchick, a plaintiffs' medical malpractice specialty law office in San Francisco (1971-1974.)
Education
- Harvard University (LL.B., 1966)
- Brandeis University (A.B., 1963)
Bar and Court Admissions
- New York (1967)
- California (1970)
- U.S. Courts of Appeals, Third, Fifth and Ninth Circuits
- California and U.S. District Courts, Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California
- U.S. Supreme Court
Organizations
California Consumers Attorneys of California (Board of Governors 1980-1995, Vice-President 1990, Parliamentarian 1989)
Alameda-Contra Costa Trial Lawyers Association (President 1980)
Alameda County Bar Association
Federal Bar Association
New York State Bar Association
California State Bar Association
Trial Lawyers for Public Justice
AFL-CIO Lawyers' Coordinating Committee
New York State Trial Lawyers Association
American Association of Justice
Great Britain's Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL)
Longtime Chair of the Allen E. Broussard Scholarship Foundation, now merged with the Berkeley Law Foundation, supporting their new Broussard Phoenix Fellowship for deserving Berkeley Law School students
