John GomezFounder & CEO of
Gomez Trial Attorneys

For many trial lawyers, their job is exactly that: a job. But to John Gomez, founder and CEO of Gomez Trial Attorneys, it’s more than just a means of putting food on the table. In fact, to John, being a trial lawyer is all about the people – not himself.

“The first place you start is really getting to know your client. That’s just time spent – real time spent, human-to-human,” he says.

For John, the desire for community has steered much of his life. It started while growing up in a Navy family, living all across the United States and seeing the uniqueness its communities had to offer.

Yet, seeking community was much easier than finding one. Fortunately, John’s college buddy was already attending law school at Stanford, and he encouraged John to follow suit. So, after working the gambit of odd jobs during his time in undergrad at the University of San Diego, John finally fell into the law – a place where he would finally find a sense of belonging.

After passing the LSAT, John was accepted into Yale University Law School, the first of his long and impressive accolades. But even after working for some of the most notable judicial leaders and law firms in the country – and even as a federal prosecutor in San Diego – John knew there was more to civil litigation than what he was experiencing.

“A lot of my job was incarcerating Mexican nationals that were, in some cases, trying to support their families – that didn’t really float my boat,” says John. “I wanted to use my skills as a trial lawyer to help regular people, and so that’s why I became a plaintiffs’ lawyer.”

From card table to corporate headquarters

In 2005, John founded Gomez Trial Attorneys in San Diego, CA, with just a card table, six cases, and one employee. Then and now, the firm has exclusively represented consumers in personal injury, mass tort, class actions, employment cases, and much more.

The values that helped establish the firm at its inception are the same today – 5 locations, 18 years, 27 lawyers, and more than 100 employees later.

“Working for individuals and families instead of the government or big corporations was consistent with my values and ethics,” says John.

Fighting for what you believe in is only half the battle, though. To John, being a trial lawyer is also about staying competitive, caring deeply for his clients, and above all else, always doing the right thing.

“You have to be all in,” says John. “It’s being the very best you can be, doing the very best you can, and helping people as much as you possibly can.”

Causes bigger than himself

That creed has helped set the stage for all lawyers at Gomez Trial Associates to tenaciously fight for their clients from day one, no matter their needs. Specifically, John is passionate about providing equal access to justice for underrepresented groups everywhere, particularly Hispanic, Latino, and Spanish-speaking communities.

“Typically, [these groups] get paired up with a personal injury lawyer that might have a Spanish-speaking receptionist,” John says. “They’re just not getting that level of representation and service that they’re entitled to.”

Serving this cause has been John’s guiding light in both the present and looking to the future of the American judicial system. It’s what made him realize that he’s working toward a cause bigger than himself.

“To me, the next chapter of civil rights is institutional access and reform,” says John. “That’s really what we’re trying to build here – a team of the very best lawyers in the country. We speak Spanish, we have cultural sensitivity, and we have empathy because it affects people we care about.”

This push to help marginalized communities transcends John’s work in the office. Because something he’s equally proud of is the close work he and his firm does to support an afterschool at-risk youth boxing program in his area. As a lifelong athlete himself, this is yet another way John unites his passions to help those in need.

“[The program provides] free boxing, afterschool tutoring, and college guidance counseling,” says John. “It really helps get these kids out of bad situations and gives them a safe place to train, do well in school, and keep on track.”

Right place, right time

Making a true impact in his community has been rewarding, but it hasn’t come easily. With the COVID-19 pandemic closing businesses left and right across America in 2020, Gomez Trial Attorneys actually almost tripled in size – a double-edged sword.

“That was a very ambitious endeavor because you had COVID slowing down receipts,” John recalls. “When I talk about growing our team, we needed capital to grow that seed. We needed capital to finance our cases.”

Fortunately, John had already sought a partnership with Esquire Bank, a bank that not only provided the financial freedom for Gomez Trial Attorneys to handle its target clients but understood its business model as a whole.

“To have a partner like Esquire understand our business and have the institutional ability to predict our success and partner with us in that success is absolutely crucial,” John says. “We wouldn’t have made it to this point, or perhaps at all, without Esquire’s help.”

But John doesn’t typically dwell on the “what ifs”. He’s too busy helping shape the future of our legal system, our country, and in turn, our world.

“Our work and our commitment to values is really far-reaching in terms of improving people’s lives – team members, [their] families, clients, past clients, and the community as a whole,” John says.

And just like that, the decades of hard work, hard fights and sleepless nights suddenly feels so simple.

“I’m proud of making a good footprint on this earth.”