Bio

Courtney Rowley

Courtney Rowley is a mother, trial lawyer, and author. She has built her career and reputation on representing regular people against insurance defense companies and corporations. She views the jury system as fundamental to maintaining a healthy democracy.  Courtney has achieved notable success by obtaining substantial verdicts and settlements in personal injury, employment law, wrongful death, toxic exposure, and medical malpractice.

Courtney is the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles’ Trial Lawyer of the Year for 2025.

Recently, Courtney has joined a team of lawyers in prosecuting Monsanto, an international chemical corporation, for its toxic injuries to women and children of the Sky Valley School System in Washington, U.S. Two recent cases she was involved in resulted in verdicts of $275 million and $100 million. These were a part of a series of trials that ultimately led Monsanto and Bayer to settle the PCB cases against Sky Valley plaintiffs.

Courtney has authored four books, including Trial By Woman, which can be found on Amazon, Voire Dire and Opening Statement, Running with the Bulls: How to Win Top Dollar Settlements and Damages Evolving with David Ball and Artemis Malekpour.

Courtney is the owner of The Rowley Law Firm, a member of Trial Lawyers for Justice, and a founder of Trial By Woman, a nonprofit organization designed to empower, support, and educate women in business and leadership. She is an advocate for civil rights and the importance of equity, both inside the courtroom and out. She has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements for clients from states across the country. Her focus is on the clients themselves, as human beings. She finds that by spending time, getting to honestly know her clients and honoring their dignity as individuals, she is better able to translate their experience to juries.

Courtney practices with her husband, Nick Rowley, founder of Trial by Human and Trial Lawyers for Justice. Nick and Courtney Rowley have been honored with numerous awards for their work in improving healthcare and expanding the civil rights of medical malpractice victims. They are the recipients of the Consumer Watchdog Rage for Justice Lifetime Achievement Award to honor their work in public interest, specifically their work to reduce and change a 45-year medical malpractice caps statute to expand all injured persons’ civil rights, especially for women and people of color. They are also the recipients of CAALA’s Ted Horn Award for Service and Iowa’s Verne Lawyer Outstanding Member Award for their contributions. “They have elevated the plaintiffs’ bar in our state and created more opportunities for injured Iowans to achieve full justice in our courts.”

Courtney and Nick are the producers of Making a Killing, a documentary about the injustices of patients and the healthcare system when caps allow insurance defense corporations to control access to the courts. “This agreement signals the end to one of the most longstanding battles in California politics, and strikes a fair balance protecting patients, while ensuring that physicians and other medical professionals can treat patients without fear of financial ruin,” Gavin Newsom said in a written statement. “This is an important victory for the stability and health of our healthcare system, and for patients across California.”

Courtney is a dedicated advocate for education, especially for girls. She and her family have built water wells and a school in Kenya. They also founded a marine conservation and preservation organization in Costa Rica, MCEC, whose projects include coral reef restoration in Costa Rica, Spain, and Fiji. She teaches trial skills and speaks across the country for legal and professional organizations.

Courtney is licensed in California, Wyoming, Montana, Iowa, Colorado, and Washington.

She and her family live between Montana and California.

Notable Verdicts and Settlements:

• Children & Students: Sexual Abuse Case – District held responsible over 19 years, $48 million verdict

• Children & Mothers: Toxic Exposure against Monsanto, $100 million verdict

• Adult Children: Medical Malpractice, wrongful death case, confidential settlement

• Children: Toxic Exposure against Monsanto, $275 million verdict

• Soldier: Traffic Accident, Personal Injury – San Diego County, $7.5 million verdict

• Minor: Catastrophic Injury, Dart Out case, $18.5 million settlement

• Adult Male: Trigeminal Neuralgia, $4 million settlement

• Minor: Medical Malpractice, $16 million settlement during trial

• Minor: Traffic Accident, Brain Injury, $10 million verdict

• Minor: Traffic Accident, Brain Injury, $4 million settlement

• Adult Male: Employment Discrimination against The LA Times, favorable verdict

• Mother: Medical Malpractice – Orange City, Iowa, $29.5 million verdict

• Immigrant Father: Wrongful Death – Los Angeles, $8.1 million verdict

• Father: Wrongful Death – Modesto, California, $14 million verdict

• Mother: Back Injury – California, $4 million settlement

Courtney has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements for clients and families impacted by negligence, medical error, and corporate wrongdoing.

Books:

• Running with the Bulls
• Voir Dire and Opening Statements
• Damages Evolving
• Trial By Woman

Courtney believes in teamwork to achieve justice. When it comes to taking on the insurance defense industry, Courtney believes that justice for clients’ justice is best achieved through the unification of talents. She accepts referrals from attorneys in every state in the country.

Bio

Nicholas C. Rowley

Nicholas C. Rowley is a renowned National Trial Lawyer, published author, philanthropist, and founder of Trial Lawyers for Justice, with a distinguished career marked by over $3.5 billion in verdicts and settlements on behalf of injury victims and their families across the United States.

Born in Storm Lake, Iowa, Nick’s early life was characterized by significant challenges, including periods of poverty and bullying during his childhood in Nogales, Arizona, and small-town Iowa. Demonstrating resilience, he became self-supporting by the fifth grade and was emancipated at the age of 16. At 17, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served a total of 6 years as a medic in the USAF and US Army.  Military education benefits helped Nick earn a bachelor’s degree in Social Psychology by age 19 and commencing law school at 20.

Nick’s legal career is distinguished by numerous record-setting verdicts across the country, including the largest medical malpractice verdict in history in the amount of $412 Million, a $131 million verdict for a car crash victim, a $74.5 million verdict in a medical malpractice birth injury case, a $50 Million against Starbucks on behalf of a 25 year old who was seriously burned and disfigured as a result of a reckless corporate culture. In Washington State, Nick has been instrumental in securing significant multiple jury verdicts against Monsanto for injuries and damages suffered by children, parents, and teachers who were exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in a public school. The list of seven, eight, and nine-figure jury verdicts goes on and on.     

Beyond the courtroom, Nick is a dedicated philanthropist and advocate. He co-founded Trial by Human, a nonprofit program aimed at enhancing trial skills for plaintiff lawyers. His humanitarian and philanthropic efforts extend internationally, including funding and constructing educational centers and helping underserved communities and nonprofits in the United States, Costa Rica, Kenya, and Bhutan. 

Nick has invested years of his life and tens of millions of dollars towards protecting, preserving, and improving the Civil Justice Systems in America and leading the charge to change unjust laws such as California’s 1975 $250,000 Non-Economic Damages Cap (MICRA).  Nick has done and continues to do similar work in multiple other States.  He is the founder of Justice Watch, a national organization dedicated to protecting and policing the judiciary throughout the United States and as an answer to the far right’s organization (Judicial Watch), which is dedicated to tort reform and appointing Judges who are willing to trample on our 7th Amendment rights and uphold insurance company sponsored legislation that places caps on damages.  

Nick’s commitment to justice and empathy for his clients have earned him recognition from numerous trial lawyer organizations and consumer advocate groups. He embodies a relentless pursuit of justice while offering world-class training to attorneys who seek self-improvement, both in and out of the courtroom. Nick shares his teachings through his books (Running With the Bulls, Trial by Human, Damages Evolving), as well as his podcast “Brutal Honesty,” which debuted at #47 on the Apple Podcasts Self-Improvement category in the US. 

Bio

Jakob Z. Norman

Jakob is an experienced trial and appellate lawyer. Before practicing law, he enlisted in the United States Air Force, where he met Nick Rowley on their first day of basic training. As teenagers, they began learning the values of discipline, teamwork, and integrity; principles they have carried with them into adulthood and continue to uphold in their relentless pursuit of justice.

While Jakob primarily represents individuals who have been injured, his legal career has also included representing criminal defendants in high-profile cases, including wrongful conviction matters. The common thread in each of Jakob’s cases is his deep belief in his client and his commitment to understanding the wrong that must be vindicated. Because he is selective with the cases he takes, Jakob devotes the time needed to truly know each client on a personal level. His dedication to justice has resulted in numerous record-setting settlements and verdicts in multiple states across the country.

Jakob began his legal career working in insurance defense, corporate law, and as a prosecutor. He has also served as a military prosecutor and ethics advisor for both federal and state governments. His experience on “the other side” has proven tactically invaluable in litigation and instrumental in achieving the best outcomes for his clients.

Jakob made national headlines after securing a record verdict in California on behalf of an individual poisoned by a major oil company that had knowingly contaminated the land. He and his team continue to represent individuals harmed by corporate negligence. This includes over 1,000 factory workers exposed to Trichloroethylene (TCE) at levels 300,000 times the EPA limits, and over 1,000 coal miners given dust masks that a major corporation knew were ineffective.

Jakob was appointed to the mass tort leadership team in In Re: Bard Implanted Port Catheter Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3081, pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. This litigation seeks justice for thousands of individuals injured by a defective medical device.

He also serves as the Executive Director of Trial by Human, a national platform committed to training and empowering trial lawyers. Based on the foundational principles of Nick Rowley’s groundbreaking book, Jakob leads programs and workshops across the country designed to elevate the practice of trial law through hands-on, experience-based education.

While earning his degree in Psychology, Jakob conducted research on the detection of deception, designed and ran jury decision-making studies, and interned at Harvard University, contributing to the CIA’s first-ever fMRI lie detection research.

Jakob has also founded or participated in over 10 startup ventures, including one backed by legendary oil magnate T. Boone Pickens, where he served as President and CEO. With $75 million in startup funding, Jakob helped grow the company into a national and international enterprise. Under his leadership, the company received the prestigious Department of Defense Freedom Award for its support and employment of veterans.

Jakob’s military service spans over three decades in both the Air Force and Army and includes ongoing duty in the Army National Guard. He has advanced through the ranks from enlisted to his current position as a Colonel, holding assignments in transportation, medical, infantry, Judge Advocate General (JAG Corps), Air Defense Artillery, logistics, and senior command/staff positions, including Deputy Chief of Staff – Logistics, Deputy Chief of Staff – Personnel, and Regimental Commander. He currently serves as a Brigade Commander in the National Guard and has received a Certificate of Eligibility to become a Brigadier General. His deployments include post-9/11 activation, Hurricane Katrina relief, the 46th Presidential Inauguration, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom. While deployed, he was a member of the team that conducted the first prosecution of a detainee in coalition forces custody in Afghanistan. Jakob has served on multiple Joint Task Forces and is the recipient of the Army Combat Action Badge, Airborne Wings, Air Assault Wings, Senior Instructor Badge, and more than 24 ribbons and decorations.

In 2017, Jakob served under appointment by the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Army on one of the Department’s most complex investigations at the Pentagon. He is also an honor graduate and received a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, joining the ranks of esteemed alumni such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant III, Colin Powell, and H. Norman Schwarzkopf.