Trial Attorney
Cinthia Chou-Chan is an Associate Attorney at Arash Law. Dedicated to her clients in the fields of civil litigation and personal injury law, she delivers comprehensive legal representation and remains committed to giving back to the community.
Chou-Chan earned her Juris Doctor in 2024 at Southwestern Law School. She was a recipient of the CALI Excellence for the Future Awards in Products Liability and Medical Malpractice. At Southwestern, she served as a teaching assistant for the Legal Analysis, Writing, and Skills course, mentoring first-year law students for over 2 years. She also honed her skills in Product Liability, which is one of her passions, while working as a teaching assistant.
Cinthia was actively involved in community service. She was a clinic instructor at the Street Law Clinic in Downey, where she created lesson plans covering practical areas of law, empowering the youth with knowledge about their rights so they can navigate life beyond the court system. She has also volunteered with organizations such as the Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s Pro Bono Clinic and Asian Americans Advancing Justice, leveraging her language skills to help underserved populations.
Before pursuing her legal education, she worked for nearly two years at a personal injury law firm, gaining hands-on experience in case management and civil litigation. This early exposure to personal injury law shaped her commitment to advocating for individuals and families facing challenging legal issues.
She is a member of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Los Angeles. Cinthia is fluent in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, which enables her to provide legal assistance to non-English-speaking clients, particularly within the Asian-American community.
Outside of her legal career, she enjoys spending time with her dogs, exploring culinary techniques, and taking on DIY projects.
Case: Pedestrian Accident
Our client was standing on a sidewalk when two cars collided in the intersection beside him. One driver, a public agency employee heading home from work in his own car at about 50 mph in a 35-mph zone, made a last-second lane change, glanced off the other car, and drove onto the sidewalk, pinning our client against a concrete wall. His left leg had to be amputated above the knee. He was completely without fault, and dashcam video captured the crash, but both drivers had entered the intersection on a yellow light and blamed each other, and the employee's personal auto policy was small compared to a lifelong injury. Full compensation depended on holding the employer responsible, but the law stood in the way: under the "going and coming" rule, employers are generally not liable for crashes during an employee's commute, and the employer moved for summary judgment on exactly that ground.
Discovery changed the case. While working on it, Cinthia saw that the written discovery and the driver's deposition uncovered facts that the employer's motion never addressed. The job required applicants to have their own transportation. His duties included regular bulk supply runs that he testified were impossible without his car, which he made before, during, and after work and on weekends, often storing the supplies in his car for days without reimbursement. He also kept his car at work for emergency errands, and on the night of the crash, he made work calls while waiting for a takeout order on his drive home. Relying on that testimony, the court found triable issues under the required-vehicle and incidental-benefit exceptions and denied summary judgment. With the employer's liability headed to a jury, the case resolved for $1,065,000.
Why This Case Mattered to Cinthia: This case taught Cinthia the power of discovery. On paper, the going and coming rule seemed likely to end the claim against the employer and leave a young man who lost his leg with only a small personal policy. But the answers were in the details of the driver's job, and careful discovery brought them out one question at a time. Cinthia carries that lesson into every case: the facts that win a case are often the ones the other side never thought to look for.
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