An injury case is won or lost long before anyone sees a courtroom. The Vertanous Firm has recovered more than $60 Million for injured Californians, including a $22.6 Million jury verdict against the City of Los Angeles, and we build every Glendale case the same way: for trial, from day one, so the insurance company prices it that way. In English, in Armenian, or in Farsi, start to finish.
Why Trial Readiness Matters
Insurance companies do not pay for injuries. They pay to remove risk. The number a carrier puts on your case is its estimate of what a jury would do, discounted by its confidence that your lawyer will never get in front of one. That is why the same fall at the Americana, the same fracture, and the same medical bills are worth one number in the hands of a settlement mill and a very different number in the hands of a firm that tries cases. Trial readiness is not a slogan. It is leverage.
We build every Glendale case for trial from the first phone call: evidence preserved before it disappears, treating physicians engaged early, damages documented in the daily-life terms a jury can feel. Carriers can read a file. When the file says ready, the number moves. Our largest result, a $22.6 Million jury verdict against the City of Los Angeles for a pedestrian struck on the head by a falling light-pole cap, came after a fourteen-day jury trial, not a phone call. You can read how that case was built.
California law starts from a simple promise: everyone is responsible for an injury caused by their failure to use ordinary care. Civil Code section 1714(a). That promise applies to the driver who ran the light on Glenoaks, the grocery chain that left a spill on its floor for an hour, the landlord who ignored the broken stair, and the city that let a sidewalk heave for years. Our job is turning that promise into a number that reflects what was actually taken from you.
Practice Areas
The Vertanous Firm is a plaintiff-side injury trial practice. If someone else's carelessness put you in a Glendale emergency room, there is a good chance we have built this exact case before:
The Injuries We See
Glendale has a shape, and the injuries follow it. Three freeways frame the city. The 134 crosses it east to west, the 2 drops out of the foothills through the center of town, and the 5 runs the western edge; the interchanges where they meet are short on merge room and long on sudden slowdowns. Brand Boulevard, Glenoaks Boulevard, San Fernando Road, and Colorado Street carry the surface traffic, with pedestrians, left turns, and parking maneuvers at every block of Brand.
But a personal injury practice in Glendale is more than crashes. The city's retail core, including the Americana at Brand and the Glendale Galleria, draws crowds onto polished floors, escalators, parking structures, and crosswalks every day of the week. The blocks around downtown are dense with apartment buildings and condominiums, where a broken gate, a dark stairwell, or a water-stained ceiling is a landlord's problem until it becomes a tenant's injury. The hillside neighborhoods north of the 134 climb steep, narrow streets where sidewalks buckle under old trees and visibility at intersections is poor. The patterns repeat:
Hurt in Glendale? Tell us what happened.
Free Case ReviewThe Process
Every case is different. The discipline is the same.
Call, text, or email, in English, Armenian, or Farsi. The consultation is free, we respond the same day, and we will tell you honestly whether you have a case, even when the honest answer is no.
Photographs, camera footage, witnesses, incident reports, and preservation letters, sent before evidence is repaired, overwritten, or lost. A store's surveillance loop can overwrite itself in days. A heaved sidewalk can be ground down the week after a claim arrives. Cases are won in the first weeks more often than the last.
You treat. We document. Glendale clients are often seen at Adventist Health Glendale or Dignity Health Glendale Memorial; wherever you go, the diagnoses, imaging, specialists, and the daily-life effects your family sees at home become the backbone of the case. Gaps in treatment are how carriers discount claims, so we help you avoid them.
A fall on a Glendale sidewalk may involve the city and the adjacent owner. A crash may involve a driver, an employer, and a roadway. Each defendant carries its own insurance and its own clock, and a public entity's clock is measured in months.
Not a form letter. The demand the carrier receives is the case it will face in front of a jury, with the medicine, the liability proof, and the law attached.
Discovery, depositions, and experts, in the Los Angeles Superior Court. Most cases settle. The strong settlements go to clients whose lawyers prepared as if none would.
Accepting a settlement or going to verdict is always your call. Our job is making sure it is an informed one, with a straight recommendation either way, in your language.
Three Languages
Glendale has one of the largest Armenian communities anywhere outside Armenia, and a large Persian-speaking community beside it. This firm was built to serve both properly. Tom Vertanous is an Armenian-speaking trial lawyer. The firm works in English, Armenian, and Farsi, and that is not a translation service bolted onto a law office. It means the case itself happens in your language.
That matters most at the moments where precision decides the case. The medical history, where a symptom described imprecisely in a second language becomes a symptom that was never reported. The explanation of what comparative fault means for your file. The preparation before a deposition, where the defense lawyer's questions are designed to produce one careless word. The phone call when the offer comes in and the decision is yours to make. All of it in Armenian or Farsi when that is the language your family actually speaks around the kitchen table. Your parents can ask their own questions and get their own answers.
And it matters for a reason that has nothing to do with comfort. Insurance companies take statements from injured people in their second language and use every imprecise word against them. That does not happen to our clients.
Our office at 301 N. Lake Ave in Pasadena is minutes from Glendale on the 134. Close enough to be local. Serious enough to know the difference between a parking-lot fall that heals in a month and a stairwell fall that ends a career.
Talk to the lawyer, not a screener. In your language.
Get a Free ConsultationDamages
No honest lawyer quotes a number at the first call. But the components are settled, and building each one correctly is the job:
And if the defense says you were partly at fault, that reduces the number; it does not erase it. California follows pure comparative negligence under Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804. A pedestrian found 20 percent at fault for stepping off the curb early still recovers 80 percent of her damages, and the percentage is decided by a jury on evidence, not by an adjuster on a hunch.
The full breakdown, component by component, including the multiplier myth and how claim software actually prices a file, lives on our page about what a case is actually worth.
Protect Your Case
Carriers do not need to beat your case if you beat it for them. The five mistakes we see every month:
None of these mistakes is fatal by itself. Cases survive them; they are just worth less than they should be, and the discount was avoidable. If you have already given a statement or signed something, do not panic and do not go silent. Call us, tell us exactly what happened, and let us assess the damage honestly.
Deadlines
Two deadlines govern most Glendale injury cases. The general statute of limitations is two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. But if a public entity is involved, the City of Glendale, the county, the state, a school district, or a transit agency, you must present a written government claim within six months under Government Code section 911.2, long before any lawsuit is filed. A heaved public sidewalk, a dark crosswalk, a failed signal, and a city vehicle all trigger that shorter clock. Some claims carry different rules; do not assume yours is the ordinary case.
Glendale cases proceed in the Los Angeles Superior Court. The Glendale courthouse sits on East Broadway, minutes from Brand, and depending on the case an injury lawsuit may be heard there or in downtown Los Angeles. Either way, no courthouse extends the deadlines above.
Evidence has a shorter clock than the law does. Camera footage is overwritten in days. Hazards get repaired. Witnesses move. The earlier we start, the stronger the case.
If we don't win, you don't pay.
The consultation is free. The representation is on contingency. If there is no recovery, you owe no attorney fee.
Questions We Hear Every Week
Nothing out of pocket. We work on contingency: the consultation is free, we advance the costs of building the case, and if there is no recovery you owe no attorney fee. The fee comes out of the recovery, never out of your pocket, and you approve any settlement before it happens.
No honest lawyer quotes a number at the first call. Value turns on liability, the medicine, the available insurance, and how well the case is built. The components are settled: medical expenses past and future, lost earnings and earning capacity, and the human damages a jury may award for pain, disability, and loss of enjoyment of life. Build those correctly and the number follows.
Generally two years from the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. But if a public entity is involved, such as the City of Glendale, the county, the state, or a school district, you must present a written government claim within six months under Government Code section 911.2, long before any lawsuit. Some cases carry shorter or different deadlines. Call before you assume you have time.
Yes. An injury caused by unsafe public property is a dangerous condition of public property claim against the entity that owns or controls the property, and it runs on a six-month government claim deadline rather than the ordinary two years. The proof is different too: notice, inspection records, and prior complaints. This is the arena of our $22.6 Million verdict against the City of Los Angeles, and we treat every public-property case with that seriousness.
Yes. Tom Vertanous is an Armenian-speaking trial lawyer, and the firm works in English, Armenian, and Farsi. The first call, the questions about your medical history, the strategy conversations, and every update along the way happen in your language, for you and for your family. Nothing is lost in translation, and nobody has to rely on a relative to interpret the most important conversations of the case.
Yes. Our office at 301 N. Lake Ave in Pasadena is minutes from Glendale on the 134, and Glendale is one of the communities we serve most. Glendale cases proceed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, whose Glendale courthouse sits on East Broadway, and depending on the case an injury lawsuit may be heard there or in downtown Los Angeles. Distance is not a factor. The consultation is free.
No. California follows pure comparative negligence under Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, not eliminated by it. Adjusters use fault arguments to discount claims; juries decide percentages, and the percentage is worth fighting over.
Client Reviews
Ani A., Glendalevia Yelp"The guy who hit me had a low max coverage. I don't know what magic Vertanous Firm worked, but I got paid for my damages less than a year out from my accident, and was paid three times more than the policy limit."
Tony K., Burbankvia Yelp"Tom is the absolute best. He knows the law and he also knows medicine. One meeting with Tom and he was able to understand the medicine behind my condition and find the appropriate doctors."
Bobby S., Los Angelesvia Yelp"Tom is a straight shooter and he's whip-smart. He treated my case as though it were his own. He has a gift for compassion that sets him apart from other legal professionals."
Where We Work
From our office at 301 N. Lake Ave in Pasadena, minutes from Glendale on the 134, we represent injured people across Glendale, the San Gabriel Valley, and all of Los Angeles County, in English, Armenian, and Farsi.
Contact
Call, text, email, or send a brief message. We respond the same day. Free consultation. No fee unless we win.
