Ian Samson
Ian Samson is a partner and trial attorney with Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP and focuses his practice on complex, catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death cases throughout California and Nevada. He currently serves on the team litigating PSR’s Social Media Cases (JCCP 5255) against Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Snap (Snapchat), Google (YouTube) and ByteDance (TikTok).
Mr. Samson joined the Firm in January 2019 and serves as a lead attorney in its Nevada practice. He has secured hundreds of millions of dollars in recoveries for plaintiffs in California and Nevada, including: a $35 million products liability settlement for burn injuries; a $28.5 million settlement against Victor Elementary School District for a child catastrophically injured in a pedestrian accident; a $17.5 million settlement against Rebel Oil for a motorcyclist struck by a tanker truck; a $15.95 million settlement against a homeowners’ association for injuries caused by defective playground equipment; an $8 million jury verdict followed by a $10.5 million settlement for a special needs teacher served chemical cleaner instead of beer at a Clark County casino; and a $9 million settlement for a woman injured in a collision with a Garda armored truck.
In Sanchez v. Victor Elementary School District, a case involving a young boy who was catastrophically injured after he was struck by a car while walking home from school, the settlement came on the heels of a trial victory with Rahul Ravipudi and Paul Traina in the liability phase of the case. The trial team successfully argued that the boy’s school district was solely liable for failing to supervise him and provide him with the curb-to-curb transportation called for in his individualized education program. Days before a jury trial was set to begin on damages, the parties settled. In addition to the monetary recovery, which will provide the child with the best possible care for the rest of his life, the school district also agreed to review its practices and publish its findings to prevent future, similar tragedies.
Mr. Samson’s career began in San Francisco, California where he represented investors in securities and consumer finance products at a nationally-regarded plaintiff’s class action firm. Among other matters, Mr. Samson was part of the team representing purchasers of “100% principal protected” investments which turned out to be unsecured Lehman Brothers debt, causing millions of dollars in losses when Lehman went bankrupt in 2008. After years of litigation, the matter settled on a class-wide basis for $120 million.
In 2013, Mr. Samson moved to Los Angeles and joined a nationally-recognized complex litigation firm where his practice was balanced between complex and class action litigation and personal injury litigation. During that time, Mr. Samson represented a class of gym members whose contracts violated California law, a photographer who claimed a nationally-known company violated his copyrights, a mechanic who suffered catastrophic burns from a faulty fuel injector, and several residents of a Sylmar, California community who lost their homes to a utility fire.
Since 2017, Mr. Samson has focused most of his practice on representing people who have been catastrophically injured or have lost loved ones, and has used his experience litigating complex actions to maximize his clients’ results. In 2017, in Rodriguez v. County of Riverside, et al., Mr. Samson represented a family whose father was shot and injured by sheriff’s deputies responding to the wrong home in a federal civil rights action. After hard-fought litigation, Mr. Samson negotiated a $1.7 million settlement for the family.
In recognition of his work, Mr. Samson has been named to the list of “Rising Stars” by the Super Lawyers publication and named among the 2025 Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch.
Admitted to the State Bar of Nevada, the State Bar of California, and several federal district courts, Mr. Samson graduated cum laude from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. While in law school, he worked for a nationally-recognized plaintiffs’ complex litigation firm in Seattle and a renowned public interest law firm in Oakland, California. Mr. Samson also externed for the Honorable Marsha S. Berzon of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Mr. Samson also graduated magna cum laude from the University of Washington.