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| | Irwin L. Goldstein Joins Defense Firm Harrison, Eichenberg & Murphy After Decades As An Applicants' Attorney By Lonce LaMon - November 26, 2014
Irwin L. Goldstein, who goes by “Larry”, has joined the workers’ compensation defense law firm of Harrison, Eichenberg & Murphy as an attorney in their Los Angeles area office. He just came aboard on November 1st 2014.
Larry Goldstein was a partner in the Los Angeles office of the applicants’ law firm of Gordon, Edelstein, Krepeck, Grant, Felton, and Goldstein for the last 24 years. But he started his career as a defense lawyer with State Compensation Insurance Fund around the time he passed the Bar in California in 1964.
“My Bar number is in the very low five figures,” Larry tells. He explains that Bar numbers are being assigned today in the 230,000 range moving upward. This means he’s been around a long time and has seen some incredible changes.
“When I went to law school, there were only three women in our law school class out of 140 students. Now if you go to law school, in many cases the majority of law students are women,” he says.
Larry feels it’s a great change that so many women are today practicing law in workers’ compensation. “I think that’s a wonderful thing, especially for a man who has three daughters—one of whom practices in workers’ compensation.” One of Larry’s daughters, Laurie Goldstein, is a hearing representative with the Harrison, Eichenberg & Murphy firm.
Larry Goldstein was born in Detroit, Michigan. He attended high school, college, and started law school there in Detroit but then transferred to the University of Southern California (USC) law school after one year at the University of Michigan. His parents had moved to Southern California and after he went to visit them, “I found out in Winter time you don’t have to have snow,” he relates.
“I like the California lifestyle,” Larry admits. “It seemed to suit me well, and I decided… if that’s where I wanted to live I might as well graduate from a local law school.”
So after graduating from U.S.C. law school in 1963, he joined State Comp, passed the California Bar exam, and by 1967 he joined an applicants’ firm called Levy, DeRoy and Geffner. “They were one of the two largest applicants’ firms at the time.” The other one was Rose, Klein and Marias.
When two of the partners—Leo Geffner and Barry Satzman—left Levy, DeRoy and Geffner to start their own firm, they asked Larry to join them. Thus, he became a partner with the firm of Geffner and Satzman doing workers’ comp law from 1971 to 1987.
In 1987 when Barry Satzman retired and Leo Geffner left the firm, Larry started his own firm with his cousin, David Goldstein, and another partner, Lou Rimbach, to create Goldstein, Goldstein, and Rimbach. When Lou Rimbach retired, Larry and
“I feel extremely lucky that I fell into this practice. It is a practice that has suited my abilities and my intellect both whether I worked on the defense or applicants’ side."
Larry Goldstein
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David merged their partnership with Gordon, Edelstein and Krepeck which from there expanded into Gordon, Edelstein, Krepeck, Grant, Felton and Goldstein. “And I was there until 2014…” Larry says.
“(Then) another door opened,” he goes on. Another door opened for him “because of the relationships you build with people whether on the applicants’ or defense side, or both.” Larry explains that workers’ compensation is so different because one sees the same individuals time after time, which is so different from other practices of law. “At Gordon, Edelstein, Krepeck et al, the personal injury partners would meet the opposing attorney perhaps once in their career.”
But seeing the same individuals time after time at the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board is “how the opportunity came up for me to join Harrison, Eichenberg & Murphy. (Now) I’m practicing law as a defense attorney almost back where I started 50 years ago.”
Larry says he’s fascinated by workers’ compensation. “I feel extremely lucky that I fell into this practice. It is a practice that has suited my abilities and my intellect both whether I worked on the defense or applicants’ side. All these years, I have met and practiced with people who are extraordinary.”
Written by journalist Lonce LaMon, lonce@adjuster.com; all rights reserved and copyrighted by Harrison, Eichenberg & Murphy.
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