Goldsmith, James W.

Ronald L. M. Goldman is a veteran trial lawyer; board certified as a civil trial lawyer, certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. He is the senior trial attorney for Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman.

He is a pilot and the head of the firm's aviation disaster litigation team. Ron taught for 21 years at Pepperdine School of Law as an adjunct Law Professor, where he created and taught the course on Aviation Accident Law.

Since 1969, Ron has been handling aviation cases and has represented passengers in many general aviation and airline disasters  such as the 1972 British European Airways crash near London; the 1978 Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 / Cessna 172 Midair Collision at San Diego, California; the 1986 Aero Mexico Flight 498 / Piper Midair Collision at Cerritos, California; the September 11, 2001 aviation (passenger) tort litigation in which he also served on the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee; and the Continental Connection / Colgan Air crash near Buffalo in 2009.

He was the lead negotiator in one of Baum Hedlund's most significant aviation litigation achievements. Ron won, as part of the settlement agreement from the January 8, 2003 Air Midwest Flight 5481 crash in Charlotte, NC, the agreement of the airline and maintenance company, in an organized ceremony, to deliver an unprecedented official public apology  to the families for the crash.

As the firm's senior trial lawyer, Ron is also involved in preparing its upcoming antidepressant injury and wrongful death  trials. He first began handling pharmaceutical litigation in the 1960s, when he was involved in ground-breaking pharmaceutical litigation which helped pave the way for the drug product liability litigation lawyers are facing today. In that case, he helped expose Richardson-Merrell's, (later known as Marion Merrell Dow) cholesterol-lowering drug, MER/29 (triparanol) which was blamed for severe side effects and birth defects.

Ron is AV Peer Review Rated lawyer through Martindale Hubbell and is listed in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, Who's Who in America, and Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum. He is also published in Million Dollar Verdicts by the Masters and has been selected for inclusion in the 2005-2009 Southern California Super Lawyers.

As lead trial counsel, Ron won one of the largest verdicts in Ohio's state's history in December of 2006 for the death of an unmarried person in a Tyson Foods truck accident case in Brumfield v. Tyson Foods, Inc.,  N.D. Ohio Case No. 1:05CV847 before Judge Donald C. Nugent that resulted in a jury verdict of $7,028,687.

Ron Goldman has appeared in the media more than 350 times concerning aviation accidents and pharmaceutical drug product liability, including safety oversight issues.

Ron received his B.S.L. in 1960 and his law degree in 1962, both from the University of Southern California.