Deputy General Counsel John Beckley joined Automobile Club of Southern California by answering an ad. That was back in 1997, when the insurance firm had no existing corporate in-house litigation team.
Turns out, the Auto Club was beefing up its legal team. He ended up being part of the firm’s first group of in-house litigators.
“It’s very diverse. I’m never bored,” he told the Business Journal. “I’m always challenged by the work.”
Later in 2002, Beckley landed his first management role at the Auto Club, and several years later, the firm created the deputy general counsel position for him and one other colleague in 2010.
Beckley became head of litigation in 2022.
During the last 27 years, Beckley has been part of several developments in litigation work at not only the Auto Club but in the legal spaces of California as well.
He oversees all corporate litigation for the Auto Club, with administrative offices in Costa Mesa, which includes a mix of legal matters such as class actions, representative actions, insurance, wildfire and catastrophe subrogation and employment law. He also manages outside counsel when partnered on complex litigation across the Auto Club’s state branches.
Beckley has led appellate teams defending the Club’s business models, such as roadside assistance, and brand at the California Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals and the California Courts of Appeal.
His past work, such as the defense of the Auto Club’s battery program and installment fees, has resulted in at least 16 published cases on various legal topics over the years. This includes being one of the few attorneys in California to lead the defense in two class and representative action trials, according to the Auto Club.
On Nov. 14, Beckley was honored with the Specialty Counsel Award at the Business Journal’s 14th annual General Counsel Awards at the Irvine Marriott.
High Stakes Litigation
Beckley knows the importance of the Auto Club’s core services to its members, which has been a large motivator of his work.
One case in particular taught him how to keep bouncing back.
Up to 2007, Beckley worked on an installment fee litigation case for the Auto Club that took three to four years before they won. It was one of the few cases where the company did not prevail in its motion for summary judgement and the judge in San Diego County certified the class action brought against them.
Beckley and his team took a writ to the Court of Appeal, which he said was a very different world to argue in. The court eventually overturned the opposition’s motion for summary judgment and ordered that the Auto Club’s original motion be granted instead.
“The stakes were really high,” he said. “It was hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.”
This kind of work by Beckley is known across the legal scene in OC.
“He is a full participant in every aspect of a case, from the initial intake, the development of the strategy, deploying the resources of the organization to support the case, discovery, motion practice and trial,” Phillip Kaplan of Umberg Zipser LLP wrote of Beckley.
“In the 20 years we have worked together, John and I have enjoyed an over 80% success rate in defeating class actions entirely — either by dispositive motion or by defeating class certification,” added John Brooks from Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP.
Changing Your Game to Succeed
Beckley said he has learned several lessons in his over 30-year career, from being resilient in getting the case done in your favor to having patience on the multi-year cases.
“It’s like in athletics, you’ve got to change up your game plan every once in a while,” he said. “Make the good adjustments.”
Outside the Auto Club, Beckley said he is still learning how to be a better lawyer.
He and his team have offered hundreds of hours of volunteer and pro bono work to the community. He also serves on the Orange County Bar Association Charitable Fund Board of Directors to help provide legal services to underserved communities in OC.
Beckley and his team are also involved as attorney scorers with the Constitutional Rights Foundation’s high school and middle school mock trial competitions held at the OC and Los Angeles Superior Courts.
The program creates a mock trial case where students compete as teams and are scored on their motions, opening statements, examination of witnesses and closing arguments.
Beckley believes this in turn reinforces his team’s own skillsets.
“It makes me a better lawyer to see what’s going on out there other than the Auto Club,” Beckley said.
