Michael David West

When I was a boy, my father David was a district judge. I remember watching his trials and being fascinated by them even as a child. However, I later took a deviation on my path and began my career in banking, where I acted as a manager, auditor and commercial loan review assistant vice president. Unfortunately, the banking industry was in pretty poor shape during the 90s so I decided to go back to school and study law like my father. In law school, I discovered that I enjoyed civil litigation quite a bit and that I’d like to center my career around it.

After graduating law school, I accepted a position at an insurance defense firm that had 40 attorneys. I was happy to be doing civil litigation because it was complex and strategic. It comes with a different mentality than criminal or family law and I have always felt that it was a natural fit for me personally. Everyone who knows me knows that I love a challenge. Yet, I knew that I did not want to be a part of large firm forever. I had an aspiration to start my own practice and in 1998 I finally realized my dream.

Now, I use my background to my advantage and take on many commercial and banking litigation cases. One of my most interesting cases was one where I defended a client being sued for making the wrong kind of cheese because he didn’t possess the proper rights to make said cheese. When you work in the field of law, you never know what kinds of cases may come your way and that makes the profession incredibly interesting.

In my cases, I will always push for victory. Settlements can even be victories in and of themselves because with litigation, the outcome is uncertain. The process can make you incredibly anxious and is often costly both with your time and your money. Therefore, I always seek to find the best overall resolution for you but that doesn’t mean I’m not prepared to fight when litigation is warranted.