San Francisco Banner, Daily Journal

“Top Trial Lawyer Hanks Fights For Justice and Social Causes”

By Anne Dorfman

Maja Hanks is a very attractive woman. And she knows how to use her good looks to her advantage.

But Hanks, president of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association, does not rely on looks alone. She has a reputation as a tough, intelligent lawyer who knows how to use the law to get what she wants for her clients – and to promote social change.

Hanks, 38, has a rare tort specialty, winning civil damages for victims of rape, child molestation and incest. She sues insurance companies and third parties such as landowners, real estate agents and property managers whom she says have not met a basic obligation to make their property safe.

In 1983, some five years out of law school, Time magazine named her as one of the top 10 women trial lawyers in the country.

“She’s certainly one of the most dynamic attorneys in Northern California, said Andrew Swartz, who went against Hanks for the first time in a recent Carmel Valley rape case.

“She did the best pre-trial preparation on any case in which I’ve ever been involved. Her presentation at the settlement conference was among the best I’ve ever seen,” said 15-year veteran Swartz, a partner in Spiering, Swartz & Kennedy in Monterey.

“She’s got brains and she’s very tough in a very nice way,” he said. “She was up against about six attorneys on the other side, and it did not deter her. In fact, the more lawyers involved may have even energized her.”

“She’s a very intelligent, aggressive attorney, and she usually gets the maximum amount of money for her client,” said defense attorney John Caudle, a partner in Kincaid, Ginaunzio, Caudle &Hubert in Oakland, who has gone against Hanks many times. “She doesn’t give anything away.”

Gail B. Chesney, a San Francisco appellate attorney who consults with Hanks, attributes Hanks’ success to her taking the work seriously and spending the necessary time on the difficult liability and damages issues involved.

“It doesn’t hurt” that Hanks is an attractive, well-dressed woman, Swartz said.

But beauty can be a double edged sword. While It may unnerve the opposition in a settlement conference, Hanks said she has found that some women envy her good looks.

That’s quite a statement from a woman who has spent years fighting the stereotypes that keep women down. But Hanks believes “women and children are the primary victims in this society” and that it is important to heighten social awareness by reaching both men and women.

“As a culture, we must take responsibility for basic safety,” she said. “If we don’t the burden shifts to the victim” and Hanks said her “feminist stuff” tells her that’s not the way it should be.

Hanks said she tries to reach judges, juries and other attorneys with “enough logical information” to help them get beyond the stereotypes.

“My job with those (envious) women is to learn how to communicate with them,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ve learned to be straightforward and talk about issues,” and that works, she said.

Dangerous Strategy

A woman who speaks directly to other women about their concerns can reach them, and Hanks uses her heartfelt woman-to-woman strategy during voir dire and in opening statements. That can be dangerous, though, because “when I come from the heart I show my insecurities,” she said.

Hanks recalled a case involving a woman with a low back injury who was accused of malingering. Hanks took what she said was the stereotype that women are overly emotional and tend to exaggerate pain, and turned it around by painting a picture of a working wife and mother whose hectic life didn’t permit her the luxury of taking the time necessary for her injuries to heal.

“I raised the consciousness of the judge,” she said.

Hanks said she uses the motherhood and understanding approach with juries for the same reason men use the “We’re talking about the American dream” or “I’m just a country boy” style – because they work. A businesswoman cannot afford to ignore her assets, Hanks said.

But Hanks said she has to be careful because “men don’t like it when women are too macho.”

Hanks never intended to devote her practice to rape, incest and assault cases, which she admits are difficult to handle emotionally – so difficult that she said she can’t bear violent movies. Periodically, she said, she finds the practice is consuming her life, and has to be careful to back off emotionally.

After graduating from Cal Polytechnic University in Southern California and the University of Uppsala in Sweden with a degree in political science, Hanks worked as a secretary and cocktail waitress “long enough to know” she couldn’t take it anymore and had to get a better job. She enrolled in LaVerne Law School in Los Angeles.

“When I passed the bar I thought it was a computer error,” she said with a laugh.

Hanks, who is of Swedish heritage and speaks the language fluently, studied in Uppsala because she was interested in Swedish politics and “needed to get out of America.” Hanks said her experiences there broadened her perspective on American society.

“It’s the only country in the world where women really do have equal power,” she said. “Fifty percent of the Legislature is female.”

Hanks went to work for tort attorney Marvin Lewis Sr. in San Francisco. Lewis’ practice concentrates on “psychic torts” – those involving a great deal of mental distress – so when her current practice opened up she had experience in the field.

Hanks went out on her own two years later, and the next year a colleague “dropped” a load of difficult cases in her lap that eventually led to her current practice.

The suits involved 13 women who had been raped while patients in a county mental hospital. Hanks settled the cases, agreeing to keep details of the eventual settlement secret, but noted that conditions at the facility have changed dramatically as a result of the suit.

Hanks no longer enters into secrecy agreements, though, because she has come to see the “conspiracy of silence” as detrimental both to her clients’ well being and to the social impact of her work.

Attitudes have changed during the past 10 years, and now many women understand it can be cathartic to talk about rape or incest.

Often, victims do not want others to know they have been raped or that they have received a lot of money, and “the defense does not want people to know they’re paying money for these cases,” Hanks said.

Cases Settle

Most of Hank’s cases settle before they get to court, so that much of her work involves preparing for settlement conferences. Hanks attributes the rush to settle in great part to defense attorneys’ understanding that sexual assailants may not play well to juries.

Gail B. Chesney, a San Francisco appellate attorney who works with Hanks, gave her “the highest marks in negotiating.”

“But the secret to her success, Chesney said, “is that she prepares. Presenting it to a settlement conference is almost like presenting it to a jury, and many attorneys don’t take the time to prepare for that the way Hanks does,” Chesney explained.

In fact, Hanks said, in 10 years of practice she has settled every case the defense said it would not settle.