For John Poswall, consumer law is a crusade. Using the law as his sword, he champions the cause of protecting people from such dangers as defective products, unsafe roads, the abridgement of constitutional rights, and abuse of power.

"I see personal injury law as a way to effect change," said Poswall, who opened his own firm with partner Parker White in 1993. "There are places all over town where I see unsafe roads closed off, fences put up, or dividers in the median that happened as a result of litigation. There is a great deal of satisfaction in that."

The penchant for helping people was deep rooted in Poswall from the start. He graduated from U.C. Berkeley's Boalt Hall in 1969 with an eye toward politics, not personal injury law. He wanted to make laws to serve the people. However, like many young graduates, he needed a job so he let his career path choose him.

"I interviewed with business law firms, water law, all kinds of firms. It just so happens that I found a job in personal injury," he explained.

In 1973, just four years out of school and still shy of his 30th birthday, Poswall took on a case that ended with a $1.5 million verdict against the State of California for a dangerous design defect in a public highway. It was the largest verdict rendered against the state at the time. It changed Poswall's life.

"You kind of fall into an area (of law)," he said. "You hit one big case and you kind of become an expert. Then other cases seem to follow."

Around the same time he came to the conclusion that the rigors of campaigning and fundraising for elected office were not for him. He shucked his political aspirations aside and shifted his focus to making social change by "fighting from the outside."

Poswall notes that one of the greatest advantages of being a plaintiff's attorney is the freedom to choose your cases. The ability to take on the cases that you read about in the newspaper that concern and upset you, he explained.

In addition to his extensive personal injury work, Poswall has also taken on a number of civil liberties and public interest cases, such as cases involving the First Amendment rights of students at California State University Sacramento and the right of women with breast cancer to obtain coverage for bone marrow treatment from their HMOs. It's that type of dedication to helping people that earned him the 1995 SCBA Humanitarian of the Year award and the CSUS Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award that same year.

While much of his civil liberties work has been done on a pro bono basis, he stresses that one can incorporate public interest into one's practice and still make a good living. He cited his case Leonardini v. Shell Oil Co. as a good example. The attorney plaintiff in that case sued Shell for malicious prosecution after the company had sued him to thwart his efforts to investigate the company. The case, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, ended in a $7.5 million verdict. "It was a civil liberties case, but it was a civil liberties case that paid money, too," he said, adding that the course of litigation had also revealed hidden information that the company was trying to keep from the public.

When not working on his cases, Poswall stays active as a member of the W.E.A.V.E. Board of Directors, indulging in his garden and landscaping hobby (with 50 acres he notes that he's talking backhoes and tractors), and finishing his book chronicling the career paths of his law school classmates.

Reflecting on his own career, he sometimes ponders whether he would have preferred staying in civil liberties law rather than focusing on personal injury. But in the end he still finds it hard to imagine any other area of law that would be quite as satisfying.