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Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
About Natalie Weatherford
Natalie Weatherford is a trial lawyer and senior partner at Taylor & Ring. She focuses her practice on representing children and adults in sexual harassment, assault, abuse, and misconduct cases. In 2024 she was named Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, and in 2025 she received the Daily Journal's California Lawyer of the Year (CLAY) award. She was on the trial team that won the $102.5 million verdict for two former Dartmouth Middle School students in San Jose, listed among the Top 10 verdicts in California in 2022, and her other results include a $35 million verdict for a woman raped by her high school track coach and a $28 million settlement for seven women abused by their first-grade teacher.
One of her settlements led to the enactment of Civil Code Section 1708.5.5 and Evidence Code Section 1106(c), which changed California law on consent evidence for minors. She has been named to Best Lawyers in America since 2020, was featured on the cover of Super Lawyers Magazine in 2022, and serves on CAALA's Emeritus Board of Governors. She earned her J.D. from Southwestern University School of Law as a Dean's Merit Scholar.
Proven verdicts and settlements
In January 2024 a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury awarded $35 million to a woman identified in court as Jane Doe No. 4, who said a Pomona High School assistant track coach raped her in 1997 when she was 16. She said the principal told her to speak to no one about it. The jury assigned 70 percent of fault to Pomona Unified School District and 30 percent to the coach.
A Los Angeles County jury found Westerly School, a private K-8 school in Long Beach, 35 percent liable for years of sexual abuse committed against a teenage boy who spent his days on its campus, abused by the after-school program director the school employed. In June 2018 the jury awarded $25.3 million: $300,000 in future medical costs, $10 million in past pain and suffering, and $15 million in future pain and suffering, with the remaining fault split between the abuser and the plaintiff's parents. Westerly's apportioned share came to just under $9 million. The school's Head of School said Westerly was saddened by the abuse but would not say whether it planned to appeal, and no appeal was later reported.
A Santa Barbara jury awarded $25 million to a man identified in court papers as John Doe #2, who was groomed and sexually abused as a teenager by Justin Sell, a former security guard and assistant football coach at Dos Pueblos High School. The December 2023 verdict, reached after a three week trial, apportioned 80 percent of the fault to Santa Barbara Unified School District for keeping Sell employed and failing to report his conduct to law enforcement despite staff being mandated reporters. John Taylor and Natalie Weatherford of Taylor & Ring represented the plaintiff.
A Santa Clara County jury awarded $37.5 million to a woman represented by Natalie Weatherford of Taylor & Ring, part of a combined $102.5 million verdict against Union School District for failing to act on years of warnings about music teacher Samuel Neipp, who abused her and another student at Dartmouth Middle School. The trial judge later denied the district's motion for a new trial and its challenge to the judgment, leaving the verdict intact.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
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Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.









