Mark McBride

Recipient – Attorney of the Year – 2007 Hollywood FAME Awards

MARK MCBRIDE
SPECIALTY: Criminal Defense
FIRM: Mark McBride Law / Gardner + Associates
STAR CLIENT: Tom Sizemore
THE BRIEF: Along with fellow attorney Jennifer Gardner, McBride, who with his flair for fashion might make him the most well attired male attorney in L.A., struck a deal with the City Attorney that got the self-admitted drug addled and often legally entangled “Saving Private Ryan” and “Celebrity Rehab” star off near certain jail time for domestic violence. Sizemore, a longtime friend of the lawyer’s, is now serving 36 months of probation and must perform 80 hours of community service teaching drama at the Hollenbeck Youth Center.
OTHER CELEB CLIENTS: McBride likes to keep most of his star cases out of the public eye. The Sizemore case was already in progress and on the record when McBride joined it.
STRATEGY: “Two things I bring to the table,” McBride told TheWrap, “are that I treat my high-profile clients like normal people, which they truly respect, and I also don’t charge them more just because they’re quite wealthy or just because they’re well-known.” The Beverly Hills-based lawyer says that POV, as well as countering the notion a celeb lawyer “is just this easy-breezy, schmoozy type” and that celebs automatically get special treatment from the courts, is a great part of both his accessibility to the media and in the court of public opinion. “What I try to articulate to the media is that my client and I are just normal people who, just like the viewer or reader or listener, puts their pants on one leg at a time like everybody else.” Beyond his folksy style and sartorial bent, one attorney who has faced off with McBride in court told TheWrap that the main reason the lawyer is a go-to guy that want quiet resolutions is that “Mark is relentless in working the particulars to get his clients the best deal possible, and then some.”