Christopher J. Beeman leads the firm’s Products Liability, Personal Injury, and Business Litigation Groups. A Fellow of both the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers and International Society of Barristers, he is also a member of American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) and an AV rated trial attorney. Chris has been with Clapp, Moroney his entire legal career, and his practice emphasizes the representation of individual and corporate parties in a wide variety of cases ranging from catastrophic injury and wrongful death claims (including complex, multi-party matters arising out of construction site accidents, and defective products) to business litigation and professional liability matters.
Chris is a seasoned trial lawyer who has successfully represented clients before arbitrators, judges, and juries in Northern California State and Federal Courts, resulting in more than thirty five favorable jury verdicts. He has also been lead counsel in hundreds of arbitrations and mediations and is very familiar with and respected by the most widely-utilized arbitrators and mediators in the Greater San Francisco Bay area and Central Valley. In the personal injury arena, Chris has particular expertise in handling sports and recreational activity lawsuits, as well as the defense of traumatic brain injury cases. He has additional experience and skill in the handling of severe orthopedic, internal injury and traumatic amputation claims.
A regularly featured speaker before private and public groups of clients and other attorneys, Chris has recently given presentations on topics including the retention and use of experts at trial, trial techniques, the assumption of risk doctrine, and cost-effective handling and defense of serious injury matters. Among his published opinions is Dilger v Moyles (1997) 54 Cal.App.4th 1452, 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 591, a First District Appellate Court decision which was petitioned to the Supreme Court for review. A sports enthusiast himself, Chris was pleased to handle the Dilger case, which holds that golfers assume the risk of injury when they are on the golf course, and have no legal duty to yell FORE after striking an errant shot.
Chris received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, magna cum laude, in 1982, and his J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law in 1985, where he was named to the Dean’s List and received an Emory law scholarship. He is admitted to practice in California and before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and United States District Courts for the Northern District of California. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a Fellow of the International Society of Barristers, and a member Executive Committee of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), Association of Defense Trial Attorneys, Association of Defense Counsel of Northern California, Defense Research Institute, and the Products Liability and Personal Injury sections of the Contra Costa and Alameda County Bar Associations. A State Chair of Claims Litigation Management (CLM), he has been named one of Northern California’s “Super Lawyers” every year since the list has been published, and is listed in Martindale Hubbel’s register of Preeminent Lawyers. In 2011, The Irish Voice named him a member of Irish Legal 100, a listing of the leading figures in law across the USA.
Chris can be contacted at Clapp, Moroney’s East Bay/Central Valley Office or at cbeeman@clappmoroney.com.
