Gwilliam Ivary Chiosso Cavalli & Brewer

One hundred twenty-nine former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory workers, most of them over 50, shared a $37.25 million settlement after a series of jury trials established that the lab breached their employment contracts during a 2008 mass layoff that followed privatization of the facility.

Stanislaus County agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle a federal civil rights suit brought by criminal defense attorney Frank Carson's estate and seven co-plaintiffs who were acquitted after a years-long murder conspiracy prosecution. The firm served as co-lead trial counsel, representing four of the eight plaintiffs and negotiating roughly $12 million of the total; Morrison & Foerster represented the other four.

A Contra Costa County jury awarded Sherrill Smothers $6.1 million after finding General Motors 80% liable for the defective roof design of his 1984 Corvette, which collapsed during a 1988 rollover and left him a quadriplegic.

An Alameda County jury awarded $2.73 million to five test plaintiffs after finding that Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC violated its own inverse-seniority layoff policy when it cut more than 400 workers in 2008.

A woman in a methamphetamine-induced crisis was shot and killed by a Union City police officer on March 7, 1998. Her daughter, father and brother sued, and an Alameda County jury in May 2001 found the officer and city liable for negligence and battery, awarding $1,935,600 in total. After the court of appeal reallocated fault to 91 percent for the officer and 9 percent for the decedent, the amount that stood is $1,761,396.