Robert May is a California personal injury attorney and the founding attorney of The May Firm, a plaintiff-side practice representing people injured in car accidents, truck accidents, and other serious injury cases across the state.
His route into the work was personal before it was professional. He grew up on the Central Coast of California, the oldest of five siblings in a blue-collar family, and made a promise to himself at a young age to become the first member of his family to earn a college degree. He kept it, graduating from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo with a degree in finance.
There was a second thread running underneath that one. At thirteen or fourteen, he was caught up in a bad situation, not a criminal one, that put him inside the court system as a client, through depositions, court appearances, and a trial. As he describes it, the one person in his life during that period who provided any sense of comfort, who made him feel less alone in the process, was the attorney representing him. He began working on Wall Street after earning his undergraduate degree, realized it was not for him, and went on to attend California Western School of Law with the intention of representing injured people.
Personal injury was the only practice area he seriously considered. He grew up with no attorneys around him, apart from that early experience and a friend who became a personal injury lawyer; his only mentor practiced in the same space. He has said plainly that he knew he would never be a divorce lawyer, a tax attorney, or someone doing contracts all day, because none of it correlated with what he was interested in.
As a young lawyer, he gained exposure to significant cases, including matters against Toyota and PG&E, and taught himself by reverse-engineering them, reading every Toyota case he could find, and studying what others had done. That approach, which he describes as an obsession, is the one he carried into building the firm. Over the course of his career, he has represented more than ten thousand injured clients across California against the nation's largest insurance carriers, and the firm reports recovering more than four hundred and fifty million dollars for them.
He is admitted to practice in the State of California and in numerous federal district courts, and is a member of the State Bar of California.
The May Firm was founded by Robert with his two brothers, Garrett and Cameron. He describes the foundation of the practice as three brothers starting a business together, with no single person operating it as a dictatorship, each holding the others accountable to the standard the firm started with. His stated motto for the practice has always been to treat clients like family.
The firm's geography follows his own. The practice began in San Luis Obispo, opened almost immediately in Fresno, the Central Valley, where he lived for years, and expanded into Southern California, including San Diego, where he lived for a further decade and attended law school. The firm currently operates nine offices in California, including the firm's Bakersfield office, Fresno office, and Long Beach office, which he is careful to characterize as real offices with real people, real team members, and real lawyers, alongside virtual options and the willingness to travel to meet clients where it is safe for them.
He has practiced in this space for more than twenty years. Free case consultations are available to anyone who calls, including callers whose cases the firm does not handle, who are referred to the attorney best suited to their case.