Since those early college days of figuring out his calling, longtime Saratoga resident Salvador Albert Liccardo, 68, has tried more than 200 cases—some resulting in notable changes to federal regulations. As one of the most prominent trial attorneys in the world today, Liccardo's name sends shivers down the spines of lawyers squaring off with him in the courtroom.

Yet most don't realize that the name that is so highly regarded in law circles isn't the name Liccardo started out with.

Born Salvatore Anthony Liccardo to an Italian father, he began going by the Spanish name Salvador Albert Liccardo at a very young age. Coming from a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, teachers assumed his name was Salvador. Albert was the name of his godfather, which he took on as his middle name, following Catholic tradition.

Liccardo moved to San Jose at age 5. He attended Bellarmine College Preparatory, where he joined the speech and debate team and played on the football team. He went on to Santa Clara University, where he majored in political science and minored in philosophy.

With counselors suggesting that he enter the medical field, and given his natural curiosity in philosophy and psychology, Liccardo changed career paths about 20 times. He gave heavy consideration to working for the State Department and to becoming a college professor.

But no matter how many times Liccardo considered pursuing other fields, something that always remained with him were his father's words: Do what you want to do—just be the best at it.

His father, who had received formal schooling only up to the eighth grade, worked at Lucky and saved up money to buy his own grocery store. His mother, who had a second-grade education, earned her living by working at a local cannery before the family went into business for themselves. Both his parents had always encouraged him to get an education.

Once he entered law school, however, he found that he hated it. But he was determined he would get through and pass the bar exam the first time around. Already married, with two children, he couldn't afford to take additional time off to study for the exam again.

"I only had one shot. If I hadn't passed, I would have had to do something else with my life," he said.

Liccardo tried his first case in 1962, approximately one month after being sworn in as a lawyer. He was appointed by the court to defend the accused in a burglary case. The case lasted about two weeks and ended with an acquittal.

Police had found the accused inside a Goodyear tires store and charged him with burglary—a charge that, by definition, means the accused entered the building with a specific intent. Liccardo argued that since his client had been found intoxicated, he had no specific intent.

"The prosecutor should have charged him for breaking and entering, but instead charged him for burglary," he said. "They charged him for the wrong crime."

Following that first victory, Liccardo spent the next five years heavily involved with criminal cases, which he said helped prepare him to become a trial lawyer. At the time, lawyers received $50 per case and $200 total if a case went to trial, regardless of how long it ran. When one trial lasted a month, Liccardo requested more pay, and the judge ordered the county to pay him $1,000 for his work, the greatest amount paid to a lawyer of his status at the time.

Defending someone he knew was guilty of a crime was not a problem for Liccardo. The question was not whether the person was guilty but whether the prosecutor could prove it, he said.

Liccardo once defended a man who had robbed a bar. After being acquitted, the man admitted to Liccardo he had robbed the bar and explained his situation: After getting out of prison for a crime he had not committed, he had befriended a woman with children and had robbed the bar to try to get food for them.

Some time later, Liccardo learned that the man was once more locked up—again serving time for a crime he had not committed. Visiting the man, Liccardo encouraged him to get an education. At the time, the man had only a second-grade education. With Liccardo's encouraging words, the man eventually earned a Ph.D. while in prison and went on to hold the highest position for an African American man in the company for which he worked.


Defending the injured

In time, Liccardo made the switch from being a criminal defense attorney to one fighting for those who had suffered personal injury. He founded the law firm Liccardo, Rossi, Sturges & McNeil, which at one point boasted a team of 25 lawyers and a support staff of more than 100.

One of Liccardo's landmark cases came in 1974, when he took Johnson & Johnson to court for manufacturing a birth control pill that left a 29-year-old mother of three blind. After the case, Johnson & Johnson began warning consumers of the possibility of blood clots, blindness and death resulting from the use of oral contraceptives. The company was forced to pay the woman $1.25 million, only the 22nd case in U.S. history with a verdict award of more than $1 million.

For that case, the jurors Liccardo selected were mostly women with postgraduate degrees. Anticipating that the pharmaceutical company would try to confuse the jurors with a complex, scientific explanation of the drug, he wanted educated jurors who could think for themselves.

"In hindsight, I was absolutely correct," Liccardo said of the jurors he selected.

In the mid-1980s, Liccardo challenged the manufacturer of a three-wheel golf cart for a defective design that caused an accident and left a 40-year-old maintenance man with brain damage. The case led to the end of the unstable three-wheel carts, which had been prone to rolling over.

Liccardo also took on a case for Travis Bell, who until a couple years ago was an Olympic bobsled contender. Bell suffered a career-ending head trauma after a camera that had been installed on his bobsled fell and hit him during the taping of a General Motors Cadillac commercial. GM settled, but had the case gone further, jurors told Liccardo they would have voted in his favor.

Also thanks to Liccardo, all cars must feature a tire pressure sensor by 2007. The ruling came as a result of Liccardo defending a Monterey man who became a quadriplegic after his car rolled over. The tires, which had shown no signs of being underinflated, blew out while he was on the road.

Since 1990, Liccardo has been representing more than 200 women against silicone breast implant manufacturers. The first case, involving a woman with fatal scleroderma, a rheumatic disease associated with an overproduction of collagen (which is used in cosmetic surgery), resulted in silicones supplier Dow Corning paying a $7.8 million settlement. A U.S. Food and Drug Administration moratorium on silicone breast implants came about in part due to evidence unveiled during the trial and documents that turned up afterwards.

Preparation is key to many lawyers' success, but Liccardo takes it one step further. His mentality at the outset of a case is to never accept any settlement that is less than what is properly due to his client.

"I never take a case to settle in," he said. "I won't get involved in a case if I'm not willing to take it to trial before a jury. Insurance companies know once I'm involved, it's going to trial unless they pay" what they should, he said matter-of-factly.

Most insurance companies keep tabs on which lawyers will go through to a trial and which ones will fold and settle, he said.

On the day of trial, Liccardo enters the courtroom well-prepared but also on edge.

"Any lawyer who walks into a courtroom and isn't nervous is going to lose. One is always at their best and sharpest when they're on edge. If you're too relaxed, you're not going to do well," he said.

Apparently others don't notice Liccardo's slight nervousness, however.

"A lot of people come into the courtroom, and they're not really trial lawyers. Sal's very comfortable in the courtroom," said John S. McInerny, a retired superior court judge who presided over a few of Liccardo's cases.

"The thing I remember most about him is how much he cared about his clients. They were almost like family to him. It was never a business relationship. With Sal, it was a personal relationship," McInerny said.

Liccardo's reputation as a lawyer has been described as essentially spotless. Jerry Smith, a retired judge who never saw Liccardo in action in the courtroom but has known him since high school, confirms that even judges who have never dealt with the attorney know of his work.

"He has a reputation of being a very aggressive advocate, with all the enthusiasm and belief in his client's cause," Smith said.


Counting his blessings

Liccardo returned to Bellarmine, hoping to give back to the school what it gave to him. Liccardo served as chairman of Bellarmine's board of regents in the late '80s and continues to hold a seat on the board today. According to the Rev. Jerald Wade, S.J., Liccardo has worked to make the private school accessible to deserving students who need financial assistance.

"Sal's a great trial lawyer, but he's also a great, down-to-earth person because of the way he can relate to anybody," Wade said. "He comes from a very ordinary family, so he knows how to deal with people."

In addition to his continued support of his alma mater, Liccardo is also known for donating time and money to a number of other causes. He gives to society "because he feels he's been so blessed" himself, explains Laura, his wife of 43 years.

He helped found Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, a national law firm of more than 2,000 trial lawyers who give their time and money to assist in cases that private firms won't accept. The cases either yield no financial return or are considered cases that have a high risk of not seeing victory. These cases often deal with gender and minority issues. Liccardo also served as president of this public interest law firm from 1989 to 1990.

As important as his career is to him, Liccardo is admired by friends and family as a man who truly values the people in his life.

"He worked incredibly hard, but he always made sure he was home for dinner," said Sam Liccardo, the youngest of the family's five children. There were days when Liccardo would wake up at 3 a.m. for work in order to make it home for dinner, recalls Sam, a district attorney in San Jose.

Sunday became "family day" for the Liccardos, starting with church and followed by brunch and perhaps a car trip. If Liccardo had to work on Sunday to prepare for an upcoming case, the children still remained at home "in case Dad had some time to spend with us," said Laura Liccardo, the eldest child and a lawyer herself. Laura began working for her father at his firm at age 11, performing clerical duties, just to spend more time with him, she admits.

Liccardo's other children found alternative ways to spend time with their father.

"You can always get Dad in a good mood getting him outdoors," said Rosalie Liccardo Pacula. Taking advantage of Sal's love for the outdoor life—he enjoys jogging, playing tennis and skiing—Rosalie and Sam often went running with him to help relieve his stress.

Despite his ability to argue his case in any courtroom in America and his devotion to his family, one thing the successful attorney has yet to master is the art of cooking.

"Whenever Mom got sick, he would barbecue, and whenever things didn't go quite as planned, he would say, 'OK, we're going out!' " recalls Rosalie.

"Other than barbecue, he's kind of dangerous in the kitchen," said Paul, the middle child.

Liccardo's one claim to fame in the kitchen is his secret barbecue sauce—that and warming up a can of soup. Thus it comes as no surprise that a barbecue dinner became the natural default whenever Laura wasn't feeling up to cooking.

Laura recounts one incident when she was sick with the flu. Liccardo reassured her he would take care of dinner. The next thing she knew, he was outside putting lamb chops on the grill, ignoring the fact that it was pouring rain. As she relates this tale, Liccardo stands at the doorway, looking down with a helpless smile on his face.

The playful relationship between husband and wife is evident in the teasing and glances cast across the room. Kathleen Liccardo, the second child, continues to call her father "chivalrous and ever the gentleman" for taking Laura out on a date at least once a week.

"My father is a great man in and of himself, but my father's ability to attain such personal and professional success has everything to do with my mother as well," Kathleen said.


The road ahead

Liccardo receives calls from all over the country from people seeking his assistance. He now only takes on two to four cases per year and is occasionally called in to work as head counsel for other law firms.

"I always had more work than I could handle," he said, adding that he's never advertised in the four decades of practicing law. Clients who sought him out heard about his work through word of mouth.

Today, Liccardo works out of his home. A skeleton and diagrams of the human anatomy sit in one corner of his office. Defending the injured, Liccardo must in effect become an expert in the medical field.

Liccardo's work on breast implant cases continues, the cases having been held up in the appellate court the past four years.

He is also preparing for another case set for an October court appearance. The case involves a 30-year-old Ukiah man struck by a vehicle. The accident has left him with brain damage and unable to walk.

Lon Normandin, Liccardo's friend since high school, can't imagine his friend not practicing law.

"Sal's never going to retire from law; it's his life," Normandin said.

All Liccardo wants in the end is for clients to say that he made a difference in their lives and that friends believe he was of value to them.

"I never imagined I'd even be doing what I'm doing," Liccardo said.