Thomas A. Brill | Personal Injury

Thomas Brill was voted “2022 and 2023 BEST Personal Injury Lawyer” in Kern County by The Bakersfield Californians Readers’ Choice Poll. He has always been passionate about helping people, and working for injury victims fulfills that passion.

One of eight kids, he grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, where he attended college at a Maryland state school, graduating Summa Cum Laude from Towson University in 1981.  He moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA School of Law from 1983 to 1986, and passed the California State Bar Exam in 1986.  Thomas has been licensed as a California attorney since that time.  He also holds a Hawaii state bar license.

During his career, he has won several multi-million dollar verdicts in catastrophic injury or death cases, the largest being a $7.2 million dollar verdict against the City of Bakersfield after a car accident. He has settled cases for values of up to $8.9 million.  Through the years, Thomas has been featured on a number of national news programs for his work on various unique cases. He helped family members sue UCLA when their willed body program decided to throw the ashes from research subjects into the trash and even helped renowned author Jack Kerouac’s daughter, Jan, reopen the Kerouac estate in Florida based on allegations of a fraudulent will – eventually resulting in the estate being awarded to her cousin after she passed away. He also won a verdict on behalf of several victims of a runaway golf cart to recover damages from the cart owner after the cart suddenly started by itself in reverse and ran several people down at the Kern County Fair.

He believes that the role of personal injury attorneys is to help make the community safer by holding wrongdoers responsible for their conduct and says, “We hope that we can secure a safer future for our own kids and grandkids by sending the message that sloppy work and unsafe habits will not be tolerated.”  Thomas also enjoys being able to help people who are having a hard time after their life is turned upside down by an accident.

Fluent in Spanish, Thomas has been involved in many cases on behalf of Hispanic accident victims. He has also dedicated pro bono time to helping people who cannot afford representation in cases where a major injustice has been done.

Thomas has acted as a mediator and arbitrator in Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and Kern Counties, and continues to assist parties and their attorneys in complex cases to reach a resolution of their claims.

In his spare time, Thomas is very involved in the arts. He has performed in several plays in Bakersfield and was once nominated for best supporting actor at Bakersfield Community Theater. He has also appeared in two short films as an actor.  He has written several screenplays and is keeping his fingers crossed that one of them will be produced. He has a passion for many kinds of music, loves swimming and enjoys traveling.