Dan Kelly, ’69

Partner at Walkup, Melodia, Kelly, Wecht, & Schoenberger

If there’s anyone who knows about standing up for the little guy, it’s personal injury litigator Dan Kelly ’69, partner in San Francisco’s Walkup, Melodia, Kelly, Wecht & Schoenberger. In more than three decades with the firm, Kelly, an SCU regent and a two-time San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association trial lawyer of the year, has faced off against big corporate interests many times, and in the process he’s heard his share of tragic client stories. There was the English couple who watched horrified as their two children fell, one fatally, from a malfunctioning ski lift at Lake Tahoe. Kelly won them seven figures in wrongful death and emotional distress damages. And there was the brain-damaged boy whose family sued a county hospital where the boy was taken for a schoolyard injury. The case, which Kelly as a fresh-faced lawyer tried with then senior partner Bruce Walkup, reaped what was at the time the largest verdict on record—more than $4 million, Kelly says.

Daily immersion in human drama can be draining, but a litigant has to keep his focus, Kelly says. “You realize that if you put out your heart to every one of these people and viewed that as your job, there would be nothing left of you. You have to keep your sense of empathy but realize that your function is to represent them, be mindful of their plight but not speak to them in just platitudes. You have to remember that they came to you in your role as a lawyer.”

Kelly believes personal injury work also has a broader benefit, particularly in product liability cases where defendant companies may improve their products, be they cars, breast implants, or drugs. “It’s lawsuits that point out, ‘hey you have a problem here.’ Then there’s a reaction,” he says.

Kelly says his Santa Clara education gave him an ethical code that helps him moderate his tone even in acrimonious cases. “You maintain a sense of civility regardless of the rigors of the trial. I don’t have a personal vendetta against the defendant or defense counsel. My job is to present the case as best I can for my client.”