Dan Bolton—a plaintiff’s lawyer for thirty years in San Francisco, including twenty years managing his own firm—has fought for decades to ensure justice and fairness for his clients. He began his work in mass torts on behalf of women injured by the Dalkon Shield IUD and the miscarriage preventative, DES.
Mr. Bolton now practices in the Rancho Mirage office. His practice is devoted to personal injury litigation. He has forty years of experience in individual, class, multidistrict, coordinated, and mass tort actions, in state and federal courts throughout the country. Appellate experience includes three cases before the California Supreme Court.
Mr. Bolton played a pivotal role in the birth of failure to warn liability in California for pharmaceutical manufacturers. He was appellate counsel in Brown v. Superior Court (1988) 44 Cal.3d 1049, the California Supreme Court decision holding manufacturers strictly liable for the failure to warn of known or scientifically knowable dangers.
He pioneered the breast implant litigation and obtained a $7.3M verdict against Dow Corning Corporation, the largest breast implant verdict at the time as well as the largest product liability verdict in the United States federal district courts in 1991, and served on the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee in the federal multi-district litigation that negotiated a $4.2B settlement with the breast implant manufacturers.
Profiled and interviewed by print media, including Newsweek, Fortune, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and California Lawyer. Recognized as the “Dean of silicone breast implant cases” by The American Lawyer, “From Pioneers to Profits,” July 1992. Mr. Bolton was even the subject of an editorial in The Wall Street Journal critical of his success (“Science Abdicates,” January 9, 1992).
Featured in books, including Joseph C. Goulden, “The Money Lawyers” (St. Martin’s Press 2006), Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith, “No Contest (Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of Justice in America)” (Random House 1996), John A. Byrne, “Informed Consent” (McGraw-Hill 1996), Marcia Angell, M.D., “Science on Trial” (W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.), and made for television movie, “Two Voices” (fictionalized character) Lifetime Cable Movie 1997.
Personal appearances on Nightline with Barbara Walters, Primetime Live, MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, and The Phil Donahue Show.
1982, J.D. University of California College of the Law, San Francisco
1978, B.A. University of California, Berkeley
