Consumer Watchdog Honors Niall McCarthy With Lifetime Achievement Award

Irish Legal 100 member Niall McCarthy was honored with Consumer Watchdog’s Lifetime Legal Achievement Award at the 2023 Rage for Justice Award celebration. Rage for Justice honors the heroes and heroines of the public interest movement. The award celebration took place in Beverly Hills and was presented to Niall by U.S. Senator Alex Padilla.

Download the tribute video here: https://cpmlegal.sharefile.com/d-sfd515f36c1c64ff0bb033fb2fa84846a

McCarthy is a principal at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP, and is based in the firm’s Burlingame, California office.  He has practiced with the firm since 1992.

McCarthy has represented qui tam relators in False Claims Act cases in state and federal courts.  He handled the Hunter Laboratories litigation in which he negotiated the then largest false claims recovery in California history, $301 million. 

McCarthy has handled many consumer fraud class actions.  He has acted as co-lead national class counsel in actions against some of the largest banks and credit card companies in the country which returned hundreds of millions of dollars to consumers.  

McCarthy also has practiced extensively in the area of elder abuse, including obtaining multi-million dollar recoveries on behalf of senior citizens in actions involving reverse mortgages. Other notable cases include compelling an insurance company to pay for a lifesaving bone marrow transplant for a cancer patient, and obtaining a punitive damage jury verdict in another case which unveiled a multi-state health insurance fraud. 

McCarthy has repeatedly been selected as one of the top plaintiff attorneys in California and the U.S. by multiple publications, including the Daily Journal, and Super Lawyers.  He has also received multiple California Lawyer Magazine Attorney of the Year awards.  

McCarthy was elected to ABOTA, the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, the International Society of Barristers, the American College of Trial Lawyers, and was awarded the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award by the San Mateo County Trial Lawyers Association.  

McCarthy is a past president of the Consumer Attorneys of California. He is currently a co-chair of the Open Courts Coalition, a diverse group of attorneys from all practice areas in California whose goal is to restore court funding.  

McCarthy earned a BA from the University of California at Davis, and a JD from Santa Clara University School of Law.

Married with three children, McCarthy traces his Irish roots to Co. Kerry one and three generations back. He is a lifetime member of the United Irish Cultural Center of San Francisco.  He has three adult children: Marisa, Thomas and Collin.