A Pasadena native, John Burton graduated from UCLA in 1976 with a degree in Anthropology. He completed Hastings College of the Law with his juris doctor in December 1978. Admitted to the State Bar of California in May 1979, Mr. Burton has concentrated on litigation involving the public interest and civil rights in both state and federal trial and appellate courts.
In addition to his public-interest oriented law practice, from 1981 through 1989, Mr. Burton was an adjunct professor of Torts at the University of West Los Angeles School of Law, where he instructed first year law students.
Mr. Burton opened his own practice in May 1984, focusing primarily on representing plaintiffs in police misconduct actions. In 1989, he earned an A-V rating from Martindale-Hubbell, placing in him the top ten percent of lawyers nationally, an exceptional achievement for a solo practitioner specializing in plaintiffs’ civil rights actions. Mr. Burton is listed as a Southern California “Superlawyer” in civil rights.
Mr. Burton has litigated scores of police misconduct cases in both state and federal court, including over 30 that have reached verdicts. He was lead counsel for a team of 12 lawyers who represented the victims of the LAPD’s notorious August 1, 1988 raid at 39th Street and Dalton Avenue, which led to $3.5 million recovered, at the time the largest police misconduct recovery in Southern California history. He served as vice-lead counsel (lead counsel was Hugh Manes) for the team of 16 lawyers that represented plaintiffs in Thomas v. County of Los Angeles, the class action lawsuit that resulted in significant institutional changes in the Los Angeles Sheriff Department Lynwood Substation and a recovery of $7.5 million, and was co-lead counsel with Barry Litt for a team of 10 attorneys representing plaintiffs in a series of related class-actions to recover damages for people over detained in the Los Angeles County Jail System, and for people subjected to visual body cavity searches after they have been ordered released from jail by a judge. ($27,000,000 recovered.)
Mr. Burton is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Police Accountability Project (NPAP) and is a former President of the Board of Directors of Police Watch: the Police Misconduct Lawyer’s Referral Service, now LA Police Watch, which includes over 80 such lawyers on the referral panel. He speaks frequently at seminars, usually one or more times a year, addressing fellow plaintiff lawyers, defense attorneys, police officers and paramedics.
Mr. Burton is a member of the Socialist Equality Party, and ran for California governor in the 2003 Recall Election, finishing 14th in a field of 135 candidates with approximately 7,000 votes. He contributes commentaries on legal and social issues to the World Socialist Web Site and to the Los Angeles Daily Journal.
Not at all local, in fact an immigrant, Tim Midgley grew up in a village in Northern England and graduated with an Honors degree in Experimental Physics from the University of Kent at Canterbury. Mr. Midgley qualified as a lawyer in England where he started as a general practitioner but soon found his niche as a criminal and civil litigator. In 1980, in need of a change, he left his position as the litigation partner for an office in Northern England and moved to London to head up the Police Accountability section of England's oldest law center.
After five years in the Law Center, Mr. Midgley moved to Los Angeles where he was employed by Manes & Watson -- Hugh Manes and his partner Carol Watson pioneered police misconduct litigation in Southern California. After being admitted to the California State Bar in 1986, Mr. Midgley continued his specialization in representing the victims of police misonduct, with an emphasis on cases involving the Los Angeles County Jails.
Mr. Midgley has maintained that focus for more than twenty years, during which he has tried many cases to juries in both state and federal Courts. Notable cases have included the over-detention class actions which were filed in both State and Federal Courts. In the federal case, Streit v. County of Los Angeles the team obtained an important ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which invalidated the County's claims to immunity, and helped in reaching a final settlement of $27 million. In the case of Musso v. City of Los Angeles, the plaintiffs were 71 bicyclists who were arrested for running a stop sign during the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. That case settled for a total of $2.75 million from the County of Los Angeles for illegal strip searches and over detention. In addition, the law suit achieved much needed changes in the County's unlawful practices of strip searching women arrested for minor offenses. The City of Los Angeles also settled for six figures and changes to its illegal arrest policies.
Mr. Midgley has also merged his science knowledge with his trial skills representing plaintiffs in patent litigation in federal courts in California and Eastern Texas.