Carolin K. Shining

Carolin K. Shining was born in Newberry, Michigan.  She received a coordinate Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and Lyman Briggs School from Michigan State University in 1987.  Ms. Shining was nominated for Outstanding Senior at Michigan State, and her senior year, she participated in a National Science Foundation program to create techniques for the study of recombinant DNA in high school laboratories.

She attended the University of Michigan Law School and obtained her J.D. in 1990, focusing on intellectual property and environmental law.  She was the president and founder of the Intellectual Property Students Association and served as the editor of the law school publication, Res Gestae.

After practicing patent, trademark and copyright law in Chicago for several years, Ms. Shining moved to California where she clerked for a plaintiffs' firm specializing in asbestos cases.  Ms. Shining knew she had found her calling.  Asbestos litigation allowed her to combine her strong interest in science and the law, as well as her affinity for helping people in need.  Ms. Shining has represented asbestos victims as lead trial counsel through to verdict, and regularly appears in courthouses in San Francisco, Alameda and Los Angeles counties.

Ms. Shining is the co-author of The Never-Ending Deposition:  The Need For Deposition Time Limitations, The Advocate, Consumer Attorneys of Los Angeles, March, 2007, and author of, "Negotiation Strategies", Women's Trial Lawyer Caucus Newsletter, ATLA, Summer, 2005.  She has also written an article that will be published in the March/April issue of Consumer Attorneys of America’s monthly magazine called Forum that will be entitled:  “Beyond Bockrath:  Oddone v. Technicolor and pleading in toxic tort cases.”

Ms. Shining has spoken at the following national and regional seminars:

2009 HarrisMartin Associates and Paralegals Seminar, Los Angeles, CA, “Cross-examination of mesothelioma victims: a plaintiffs’ perspective”

2009 Plaintiff Asbestos Lawyers Seminar (“PALS”), “Union Carbide Corporation and Asbestos”

2006 Plaintiff Asbestos Lawyers Seminar (“PALS”), “Telecommunications workers and asbestos exposure (with Scott Hendler)”

Ms. Shining is a member of Los Angeles County Bar Association Litigation Section Executive Committee.  She is licensed to practice before the State Bar of California, the Illinois State Bar Association, the Northern and Central Districts of Illinois and the Northern District of California.  She is also a member of the Women's Trial Lawyer Caucus of the American Association for Justice (formerly ATLA) and Consumer Attorneys of California and Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles.  She is a former Registered Patent Attorney.  She is also the mother of two sons, ages 6 and 8.

Carolin K. Shining
1608 Fourth Street,
Suite 300
Berkeley, CA 94710
phone (800) 933-2244
fax (510) 559-9970
Email