Robert Francis Brennan

Attorney Robert Brennan grew up steeped in the legal tradition: his uncle was former U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. (deceased), and his father, Frank Brennan, was chief in-house counsel for several major U.S. corporations during his long career.

Robert Brennan began his career in civil litigation in 1988, and opened his own general practice firm, The Law Offices of Robert F. Brennan in 1991 (). Mr. Brennan handled (successfully) his very first California lemon law case in 1991 and has handled many thousands of lemon law cases since then. His record of favorable settlements and verdicts in California lemon law cases is, depending on the year, either the best or very close to the best for all attorneys practicing lemon law in California.

In addition to California lemon law, the firm also specializes in litigating serious personal injury cases and cases related to violations of consumer protection laws, including unfair and abusive debt collection, automotive dealer fraud, wrongful credit damage and identity theft cases. Mr. Brennan and his firm enjoy an “AV” rating from Martindale-Hubbell, and he has been selected as a “Southern California Super Lawyer” for nine consecutive years.

Mr. Brennan is an experienced and aggressive trial and appellate lawyer with an excellent win record. In one five-year stretch (2004 to 2009), Mr. Brennan did not lose a single trial in spite of his very busy trial calendar, where he averages between two and five civil trials per year. His trial winning percentage remains very high, among the best in California. For many years, his verdict in Ferraro/Park City v. Ford was the largest verdict ever in California in a Song-Beverly “lemon law” case; the verdict has since been surpassed only once. His other recent major victories include having the Fourth District Court of Appeal uphold his Fair Credit Reporting Act verdict in Fisher v. Wells Fargo. At over $1.1 million gross, it wasone of the largest California verdicts ever for wrongful credit damage; even after reductions by the Court of Appeal, the gross verdict (inclusive of fees and costs) was approximately $700,. In Nelson v. Arrow, he obtained a gross verdict of over $300, in a case brought under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In Kelly v. Ralph’s Supermarket, January of 2010, he won a $500, verdict for a trip-and-fall plaintiff who had torn her rotator cuff in the accident. Along with Public Justice and Public Citizen, he co-authored the “friend of the court” brief in Gorman v. Wolpoff, which resulted in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issuing a strongly pro-consumer decision against federal pre-emption of California’s Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act. He is also a nationally recognized speaker on trial practice and on consumer protection and consumer fraud issues, and has published numerous articles on those and other litigation issues.

He recently co-authored the California edition of “Debt Collection Answers,” a book detailing consumer rights and remedies for abusive debt collection practices.

When he is not practicing law, Bob Brennan enjoys time with his children, dancing (salsa and swing), martial arts (Muay Thai), hiking (throughout California, including several backpacking trips in the High Sierras), cooking, gardening (he maintains a large organic garden on his property, including vegetables and fruit trees) and reading (mostly current fiction and politics).