Thursday, November 14, 2002
Page 4
Long Beach Litigator James Otto of Altman Otto & Kang Inducted Into American College of Trial Lawyers
By a MetNews Staff Writer
James Otto, a partner in Long Beach’s Altman Otto & Kong, has been inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Otto was inducted into the prestigious organization last month when it held its 2002 Annual Meeting of the college in New York City.
“It was an honor,” Otto said. “You don’t just get in by having a certain number of trials.”
Membership in the organization is exclusive — only up to one percent of the trial lawyers in each state can belong — and by invitation only. Otto said he found out he was under consideration for membership in the college after the organization began to contact his colleagues and extended family members.
He said one lawyer with whom he had worked on a case in the late 1980s sent him a carbon copy of a letter to the college. So by the time he got a formal application, he said, it wasn’t much of a surprise anymore, though still “delightful.”
Part social organization and part professional association, the group occasionally issues position statements on issues that affect its members, mostly through the work of its committees. Though he’s too new to the organization to have been invited onto a committee, Otto said he’d be interested in working with the complex litigation committee.
Otto has practiced law for 28 years, all of which he has spent in Los Angeles County. He specializes in complex litigation, especially in insurance matters. He is a graduate of the Northwestern University School of Law and a past vice president and member of the Board of Governors of the State Bar of California.
The ACTL was founded in 1950. It currently claims about 5,200 members in the United States and Canada, and seeks, according to a press release, “to improve and elevate the standards of trial practice, the administration of justice and the ethics of the trial profession.”
Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company