About Rya Nelson
Rya M. Nelson is an Associate Attorney who exclusively represents plaintiffs in employment, personal injury, and civil rights matters. Throughout her career she has handled cases from intake through jury verdict, representing individuals who have been injured, wronged, or discriminated against. She earned her J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law, where she served as Co-President of the Latinx Law Students Association and competed in the Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition.
She also externed with the Hon. Mary E. Wiss at the San Francisco Superior Court. She graduated cum laude from the University of Arizona with a B.A. in Communication and Law. She is a board member of the Alameda Contra Costa County Trial Lawyers Association and belongs to several plaintiffs and bar organizations throughout the Bay Area.
Proven verdicts and settlements at Gwilliam Ivary Chiosso Cavalli & Brewer
These results are credited to Gwilliam Ivary Chiosso Cavalli & Brewer. A result appears under an attorney's own name only when a published source names them as counsel on the case.
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.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
