Bishop, Raymond Everett Sean

Matt's legal career germinated with television, a boyhood addiction to Perry Mason, The Bold Ones, Arrest & Trial and movies about lawyers. The portrayals of trial lawyers matching their wits and intelligence against that of other lawyers and witnesses appealed to the same competitive spirit which had always driven Matt in sports, school and his other endeavors.

After a successful undergraduate career at UCLA, Matt went to law school at Loyola University (L.A.) At the end of the first year, Matt started clerking at the labor law firm of Levy & Van Bourg, where he first saw the tremendous advantages that large corporations and insurance companies have within the legal system because of their greater wealth. While clerking and later working as a labor lawyer, Matt realized, however, that lawyers with refined trial skills could enable seriously injured and financially damaged individuals and small businesses to compete with the corporations and insurance companies.

Matt dedicated his professional career to developing the skills that would enable him to protect the rights of the seriously injured and financially damaged. For the first four years, working as a labor lawyer, Matt was able to spend more time in trial than most lawyers spend in a life time. When Matt felt that his legal skills were honed to the point where he could provide his clients representation equal to or better than that available to the wealthiest corporations and insurance companies, he founded the firm which ultimately grew into BIREN/KATZMAN.

In the ensuing 30 years, Matt's competitive spirit and drive to protect his client's interests has not slowed. If anything, the challenge of incorporating modern technology into the arsenal of tools to effectively practice law and represent Plaintiffs with serious/catastrophic injuries or who have suffered financial losses has spurred Matt onto working harder than ever. In looking back over his career, Matt feels that he has succeeded in emulating his celluloid boyhood heroes by becoming an extraordinarily skilled trial lawyer who always gets his client the best possible results.

Personally, it has often been a struggle for Matt to balance his commitment to his family his wife Dee Dee, six children, five grandchildren, their dogs and four horses with the tremendous time demand of being a skilled trial lawyer handling extremely complex matters. Matt's favorite time is spent with the family, whether it is riding horses, playing golf, going on vacation or just an outing to dinner or the movies. Matt believes in his heart (if not with his head) that he could successfully compete on the senior tour, but Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer and gang are safe for the moment, as long as there remain legal dragons and boogeymen to slay.