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Developer West Seegmiller wanted to design Newport Lofts with a Southern California flair since that's where more than half of his buyers are coming from.

The demographic profile of his buyer is the 35- to 45-year-old male professional, many of them single, from Los Angeles looking for a second home in Las Vegas.

"They want to go into a look they're familiar with," Seegmiller said during a tour of the 23-story, 168-unit Newport Lofts at Casino Center Boulevard and Hoover Avenue. "In California, Newport Beach has a certain cachet, a certain eclectic surf culture and art culture, so there's a cachet that comes with Newport that Southern Californians instantly recognize."

About 20 full-time residents live at Newport Lofts, he said. One-fifth of the buyers are investors; the rest are second-home owners.

Home Builders Research reported 32 escrow closings at Newport Lofts in July at an average price of $536,315.

Seegmiller, who developed Newport Lofts in a joint venture with SoHo Lofts developer Sam Cherry, said he's sold all but 44 of the units at Newport, with 81 escrow closings in the last six weeks. His fallout, or cancellation rate, is about 3 percent, compared with a national average of 27 percent, he said.

Prices start from the mid-$500s a square foot. A penthouse suite recently sold for $2.1 million, or about $700 a square foot, which is about as low as you'll find for a penthouse, Seegmiller said.

Newport Lofts sales executive Tiffany Shleifer said all the units come with Italian cabinetry and upgraded, top-brand appliances.

"We did not go with one line because we want the best of each appliance," she said. "You get a Subzero fridge, Wolf microwave, Bosch dishwasher and KitchenAid gas range. Not to mention Kohler sinks and tubs, Dormbracht fixtures and LBL lighting. It really doesn't get much better."

Seegmiller said he knows about the criminal reputation of downtown Las Vegas, but like Rich Gustafson, developer of the mixed-use Juhl project nearby, he thinks the area will become self-policed by local condo residents and property owners.

It happened along Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, a notorious corridor of bums, drug dealers and prostitutes on a scale that makes Fremont Street look like Town Center Drive in Summerlin.

The Chevrolet dealership was told by General Motors to relocate to a better neighborhood, local museums saw attendance drop significantly and the University of Southern California, an area hallmark, had trouble recruiting students.

Business owners and residents formed an alliance and walked around the area picking up trash and warning people about leaving exposed valuables in parked cars. They dressed up street lamps and made other improvements to the neighborhood, Seegmiller said. More than $1.5 billion in investment has been poured into the area since 1998.

In his second-quarter luxury condo report, real estate consultant John Restrepo said there are 3,523 existing mid-rise and high-rise units in Las Vegas, 10,237 units actively selling and 13,508 units canceled or suspended. The downtown area has 120 units completed (SoHo Lofts), 2,214 actively selling and 1,735 cancelled or suspended.

Breslin Builders was general contractor for the $115 million Newport Lofts project.

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Newport Lofts: California flair, Las Vegas address

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Developer West Seegmiller wanted to design Newport Lofts with a Southern California flair since that's where more than half of his buyers are coming from. The demographic profile of his buyer is the 35- to 45-year-old male professional, many of them single, from Los Angeles looking for a second home in Las Vegas.

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Multi-Seven Figure Settlement - SoCal Girl Drowns in Community Pool

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Founder of the Newport Beach-based Seegmiller Law Firm, William Seegmiller, successfully obtained a multi-seven figure settlement after the County of San Bernardino's negligence led to the death of a seven-year old girl. Last summer, this case gained media attention when Stacie Garcia drowned in the deep end of a community pool that was under-equipped for the volume of people it had present.

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San Diego Attorney Lands on Amazon Best-seller List

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San Diego attorney and former judge West Seegmiller, who is among the entrepreneurs featured in "Profession Performance 360 Special Edition: Success," announced that the book has landed at #11 on Amazon.com's "Direct Marketing" list and in the #62 position in the "Sales & Selling" category.

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BEVERLY HILLS >> An Anaheim family of a girl who died last year in Ontario made a plea Wednesday for increased safety measures at public pools.

Stacie Garcia, 7, drowned July 12 at Cucamonga-Guasti Regional Park. Stacie and her family were spending the day at the park when around 4:30 p.m. a lifeguard spotted the girl floating below the surface of a pool, according to officials. Lifeguards pulled her from the water and immediately started CPR to no avail.

An attorney for the Garcia family, Newport Beach-based West Seegmiller, said in a statement Stacie got separated from her mother, Ana Jaime Garcia, who thought Stacie was with her father, Jose Luis Garcia.

"During the confusion, Stacie was able to enter through the gate to the pool area unsupervised," Seegmiller said.

The family settled with San Bernardino County before a lawsuit was filed, according to a spokeswoman for the law firm.

At Wednesday's news conference in Beverly Hills, the Garcias called upon operators of public pools to provide:

* Better trained lifeguards with CPR certification

* Higher lifeguard-to-swimmer ratios

* Elimination of cell phone use by on-duty staff

* Manned, spring-loaded gates to pool area

* Life jackets for nonswimmers
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Family of girl who drowned in Ontario public pool calls for increased safety measures

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BEVERLY HILLS >> An Anaheim family of a girl who died last year in Ontario made a plea Wednesday for increased safety measures at public pools. Stacie Garcia, 7, drowned July 12 at Cucamonga-Guasti Regional Park. Stacie and her family were spending the day at the park when around 4:30 p.m.

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William Seegmiller - Entrepreneur, Pilot, and Philanthropist

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Slip and falls? Personal injury attorney says the system works and has the mock court to prove it – Orange County Register

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Slip and falls? Personal injury attorney says the system works and has the mock court to prove it – Orange County Register

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Blazing on the back of a bus is the promise of big bucks if you have what Mom used to call an "owie." Even better, make that a heck of an owie.

Most of us shake our heads about what we sometimes call blood-sucking lawyers and remember simpler times when a "slip and fall" meant you dusted yourself off, sucked it up - and hobbled around for years.

But with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting 17,000 annual slip and fall accidents alone, is the grumbling based on fact or fiction?

West Seegmiller sits in his mock courtroom in Newport Beach - that's right, a courtroom complete with judge's bench, jury chairs, attorneys' table - where he tests cases before mock juries. He has invited me here to talk about the value of focus groups.

But we stray far from the topic because straying often leads to soul-searching, which leads to sharing, which - when the stars align - uncovers shining beams of trust and truth.
CHARACTER COUNTS
We talk about Boy Scouts. I never made it past Tenderfoot. Seegmiller was an Eagle Scout, his oldest son was an Eagle Scout, and his second son made it through all the requirements.

Then the 16-year-old stopped. He never took the Eagle Scout oath.

Seegmiller glances down at the carpet, pauses and looks up. In almost a whisper, the attorney confides that his son said he wasn't comfortable with the pledges. He was gay.

For the Seegmillers, the announcement hit especially hard. They are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in the 1990s Mormons didn't exactly support such diversity.

"We'll stand beside you," Seegmiller told his son. Dad hasn't veered since.

In 2008, Mormons poured tens of millions of dollars into passing Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage. Every Sunday, Seegmiller went to church and silently laid fliers on a table explaining that sexuality wasn't a choice, that something Mormons call "agency" allows humans to act for themselves.

In the office and across the table from Seegmiller is a man I've known for years, just as he has known Seegmiller for years. My friend also happens to be gay. This is the first time he has heard Seegmiller's story, the first time he's learned the lawyer has a gay son.

He tilts his head back, overwhelmed. He breaths, "Cool."

It is not a tale about personal injury law, nor is it about million-dollar settlements.

But it is a story about justice.
FIGHTING 'GOLIATH'
Seegmiller grew up near Sacramento and attended UC Davis, where he planned to eventually become a doctor. He got as far as freshman chemistry.

The periodic table looked more like hieroglyphics than an explanation of protons and electrons.

After graduating as a political science major, Seegmiller earned a master's at USC and a law degree from McGeorge School of Law at the University of Pacific in Sacramento. He explains that rather than him finding personal injury law, a series of events caused the specialty to find him.

As an intern, he handled a relatively simple auto accident settlement. His boss got the 30 percent split, common in personal injury cases. Not a bad way to make a living.

In his 20s, Seegmiller also had a motorcycle crash. Treatment was painful - and critical.

Then he handled a slip-and-fall case in which a woman was shopping at a grocery store where a faulty freezer left water on the floor. Her back was badly injured and, Seegmiller says, the insurance company's lawyer visited the woman while she was still in the hospital and got her to sign a waiver for $500.

Seegmiller believed people like her needed representation.

Now 65 with five adult children and a 3-year-old daughter, Seegmiller has handled thousands of cases resulting in verdicts totaling more than $150 million. Why keep going?

Insurance companies, he says, have fleets of highly paid attorneys from the best law schools. "In school, I hated bullies. This is about leveling the playing field."
CLEARING THE CLOG
I ask about ambulance chasers.

Seegmiller's firm is in a modern Taj Mahal-like building, has more cases than it can handle and refers out many. But the attorney also defends so-called personal injury mills in which lawyers crank out quick settlements.

He credits such firms with serving as clearinghouses, helping courts with an already clogged justice system. He points out that in personal injury cases, speed and paying bills often are factors.

But what about greedy attorneys and clients exaggerating injuries for a fast buck?

That's more myth than reality, Seegmiller says. In the digitized world, it's easy to spot sham attorneys and people who spam the system with bogus lawsuits.

Insurance companies are quick to battle if there's a chance of winning. Personal injury attorneys make money only when they win. The lawyer says the system generally works.

"Rarely is an insurance company willing to throw money at a case unless it's on 'all four legs,' as we call it. The average settlements are small, something in the $10,000 range."

The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports the median settlement in a civil case that reaches trial is $28,000; only 4 percent involve settlements of more than $1 million.

To boost his odds, Seegmiller uses his mock courtroom to focus on certain critical issues in a case and presents them to a random "jury pool" he hires through Craigslist. The focus group doesn't know it is working for a law firm, thinking it's for the "California Jury Research Project."

One time, a female client testified in the mock courtroom that she had a back injury. Though her claim was true, the "jurors" threw out her case because they'd seen her in 7-inch-high heels.

Another time, a man with a back injury reported he suffered erectile dysfunction and listed the number of times his love life had suffered. Male jurors sympathized. But female jurors didn't.

Yet when the man talked about how a lack of love-making had affected his spousal relationship as well as his self-confidence, the women responded.

"You never want to have your trial," Seegmiller says, "be the first focus group."

Seegmiller explains that before going to court, he shares the mock trial videos with insurance companies. The hope is to make the client's ordeal end as quickly as possible with a fair settlement.

He calls what he does "David versus Goliath."

In September, Seegmiller plans for the first time to embed regular citizens in court during trial and later that day interview them on what worked and what didn't.

It will add another rock to his sling.

Contact the writer: dwhiting@scng.com

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Slip and falls? Personal injury attorney says the system works and has the mock court to prove it

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Blazing on the back of a bus is the promise of big bucks if you have what Mom used to call an "owie." Even better, make that a heck of an owie. Most of us shake our heads about what we ...

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William Seegmiller Has a Long Record of Philanthropy

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William Seegmiller Has a Long Record of Philanthropy

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William Seegmiller Has a Long Record of Philanthropy

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For approximately 35 years, attorney William Seegmiller of Southern California advocated on behalf of individuals who had been injured in accidents. Recognizing that

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An attorney who earned more than $150 million in settlements and verdicts for his clients over the course of a career spanning more than three decades, William Seegmiller possesses an accomplished educational background. Along with a bachelor of arts in political science from the University of California, Davis, and a master of arts in real estate from the University of Southern California, he holds law degrees from both the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific and the School of Law at Pepperdine University. William Seegmiller has also completed continuing legal studies through Harvard Law School and the Trial Lawyer's College.

While he is finished with his own studies, Mr. Seegmiller facilitates educational opportunities for today's students as a supporter of scholarships at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law and at his alma mater, Pepperdine University. Beyond education, he stands out as a patron of the arts. In this capacity, he contributes to theatre groups and has sponsored a ballerina from the Bolshoi Ballet.

William Seegmiller's involvement in the arts also extends to the film industry, where he has served as an executive producer of the film Maximum Achievement. In recognition of his efforts on this project, he garnered the Golden Reel award.

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An attorney who earned more than $150 million in settlements and verdicts for his clients over the course of a career spanning more than three decades, William Seegmiller possesses an accomplished educational background. Along with a bachelor of arts in political science from the University of California, Davis, and a master of arts in real...