Today we’d like to introduce you to Arkady Tselner.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Hello, I am Attorney Arkady Tselner.
My journey to personal injury law began long before law school. It is rooted in my family’s immigrant experience and an early sense that justice should never be out of reach. From a young age, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer, and I built that future for myself step by step, with focused effort and determination. Today, I lead a successful personal injury practice, providing unwavering client support and tireless legal advocacy. I don’t delegate client relationships; I nurture them. My clients know that I am available whenever they are worried and have questions about their case and their future; they know I care; and they trust that I will fight as hard for them as I would for my own family.
During this interview, you’ll meet the lawyer behind this story, and you will find me to be a calm, smart, dedicated, and relentless advocate – just the kind of person you want by your side during a challenging time.
What led me to become a lawyer? Well, I was born in the former USSR, and my family came to the U.S. in 1987 as immigrants. I was just a kid – maybe 11 – and we stayed with my aunt and uncle, who had come over in the first wave back in ’79. One day, they asked me, “Now that you’re here, what are you going to do?” Without hesitating, I said, “I’m going to be a lawyer.” I don’t know why; it just came out naturally. They laughed and said, “But how? It’s expensive. You don’t have money for that.” I said, “I’ll figure it out,” and, in that moment, I truly and fully believed that I would.
Later on, in high school when I was 15 years old, I got a work permit and took a job as a clerk at a law office near school. I figured, if I’m going to say I want to be a lawyer, I should see what it’s really like. So I worked there – just a kid doing whatever they needed – and I loved it. I got a raise without even asking, and I just absorbed everything. It was a shared space with multiple attorneys, and to me, it was romantic. I knew I wanted to be one of those lawyers one day.
Another thing is that I’ve always had this sense of justice – probably from my mom. I say she was my first law professor because she taught me right from wrong. I never liked bullies, and I think law gave me a path to fight back against that kind of thing. So, after that job in high school, I just kept going – interning, challenging a parking ticket for my dad (and winning!), and just building this sense that being a lawyer was who I was. I didn’t feel like a doctor or an astronaut. I just felt like a lawyer. So I took it step by step: Step 1, intern; Step 2, college; Step 3, law school; Step 4, pass the bar exam; Step 5,
go to work for someone else; Step 6, I can do this on my own. It never felt forced; it always felt right.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
People often ask me why I chose personal injury law. That part wasn’t as clear-cut at first. I thought maybe I’d go into sports law – something tied to my hobbies. I was a gymnast growing up, so sports and entertainment law sounded exciting. But hobbies are hobbies. Life had other plans. Shortly after we came to the U.S., my dad got injured on the job. He was working for a plumbing company, and a pipe fell on his head when someone failed to secure it properly. My dad wasn’t doing anything wrong. (He wasn’t even given a helmet to wear on the job.) But no one helped us. We were new to the country; no one told us about our rights or that we could talk to a lawyer. We didn’t know about things like workers’ compensation or statutes of limitations. By the time we figured it out, it was too late.
I had to delay school to help support the family. My dad couldn’t work anymore, and we were just left to figure it out on our own. No one should have to go through that. I think, maybe, that experience planted the seed, even if I didn’t realize it right away. During law school, I interned at a firm that handled personal injury cases, and it just clicked. I was good at it. It was meaningful work. It felt good to help people who had no one else looking out for them. Yeah, it’s stressful – you bankroll everything, lots of sweat equity, sacrifices, and you’ve got to manage that – but once you figure it out, it’s incredibly rewarding. People have stereotypes about personal injury lawyers, but the reality is that personal injury lawyers are fighters. We fight for people who are getting pushed around. That feels right to me. That’s why I do what I do, and I honestly can’t imagine doing anything else.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The way I approach personal injury cases and, more importantly, my personal injury clients is by being present. The first thing I do is talk to my clients like a regular person – not like a lawyer. That instantly builds trust, and I carry that connection through the entire case. I learned early on that how you treat people matters just as much as what you do for them. Before I went to law school, I paid my way through college by working at the AAA’s Automobile Club of Southern California, in their Emergency Road Services department. People would call in from the side of the road during some very stressful moments. I was trained in what they called their “customer service college.” It was all about how to really listen, stay calm, and provide help in a moment of panic. They ran random customer service surveys, and I always scored high; I even got a few awards for it. That experience stuck with me. It taught me how to be present for people when they need it most. That’s how I built my law firm. I provide what I call a concierge-level service. When someone hires me, they expect to work with me – not a case manager or someone behind the scenes – and that’s what I deliver. I make sure every client knows they’re directly connected to me, and that I’m listening.
To maintain that connection with my clients and make the legal process easier for them, I use systems. I invest heavily in technology because the number one complaint people have about lawyers is lack of communication. We live in an Amazon world now, where people expect things to happen immediately. So, I use technology to meet that expectation and make the legal process as simple, efficient, and stress-free as possible. My clients can reach out through a secure case portal, get updates, ask questions, and know that someone – usually me – is going to respond quickly. Most people who come to us are dealing with this process for the first time, and there is a lot of noise out there – lawyer ads on TV and misconceptions about what personal injury lawyers do. So I work hard to make sure people feel heard, respected, and cared for. I let them talk. I take notes. I follow up.
A lot of what I do is the exact opposite of what I’ve seen go wrong in our profession. I’ve read the bad reviews people leave for other attorneys, and I’ve built my practice purposefully and intentionally to avoid every one of those mistakes. That’s the secret sauce. I pay attention to and care about how people feel when they work with me. And you can see it in my own reviews. I don’t say that to brag, but because it really means something to me. When a client leaves a heartfelt review, unprompted, and tells me I gave them exactly what they needed, that’s everything. That’s why I do what I do.
We as lawyers are entrusted to be the voice for the voiceless, the vulnerable, and the underdog. That is an awesome responsibility that I do not take lightly. In one case, where I stepped in to help, stayed with me more than any other. It involved the wrongful death of a young woman – an only child – whose parents came to me after she was killed in what I would never call an “accident.” It was a crash. A tragedy. She had gone to a birthday dinner at a restaurant in Studio City. Afterward, she got into a car with someone who had been drinking. They were speeding down Ventura Boulevard when the driver lost control. The car hit the curb, jumped it, crashed into a tree, then a parking meter, and finally slammed into the wall of a pizzeria. Miraculously, everyone inside the car survived the impact. But what nobody realized at first was that the crash had severed an exposed gas line – an unprotected one right there on Ventura. The car caught fire, and everyone in that vehicle died.
Her parents lived in Russia. Their daughter had come to the U.S. to study. She was just starting her life. They didn’t know anyone here, didn’t speak the language, and had no idea where to turn. Someone connected them to me because I speak Russian. I studied it at UCLA just so I could help people like them one day. That choice came full circle in this case.
They weren’t concerned about money. They just wanted to give their daughter a proper burial, but they had nothing. The driver’s insurance policy was only $15,000 – nothing, really – and it wasn’t going to make any of this better. But we wanted answers. So I hired an investigator, and we uncovered a missing piece to this puzzle: Someone had been recording on their phone at the time of the crash and caught just enough footage for us to piece things together. That’s when we discovered that the fire hadn’t started because of the gas tank or from the impact with the curb, like we first thought. The fire started because the utility company hadn’t protected that gas line. There was supposed to be a barrier, and there wasn’t. That’s how the line was severed. So now we had a real defendant. There were multiple kids in that car, all of them gone.
We filed a lawsuit. We were literally picking a jury when the utility company finally backed down and paid what we asked. It was a significant amount – enough to help these parents return to the U.S. whenever they want, to visit their daughter’s grave, to honor her memory. More importantly, it forced the utility company to change its practices. They started putting up barriers around those lines. That wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
What I’ll never forget is how, at the end of the case, the defense attorneys came over to us. They hugged us. They were human in that moment. They understood what this meant. It was one of those cases where I’ve seen real change happen. This was about 12 years ago, but it still feels like yesterday. It’s one of those cases that never leaves you.
Something that has been a theme throughout my journey, and the one thing I’d like your readers to take away about me and my practice, is that everything is grounded in safety. I do this work because a split second on the road can rewrite a life, and our cases exist to enforce the simple rules that keep people safe. That philosophy shapes how I practice: clear communication, practical guidance through medical care, and trial-ready advocacy when an insurer won’t be fair. So while my parting message is always “please be careful when you’re out there,” the bigger point is this: my mission is to protect people and reinforce community safety—one case at a time.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
We live in one of the best places in the world, and I am proud and lucky to call Los Angeles my home. Whether it is the luxury of a coastline lifestyle, the great year-round weather, or food selection and entertainment, L.A. has a lot to offer to people from different walks of life. For me, it is the combination of all these things. The worst part of living in L.A., of course, is commuting during heavy traffic.
Pricing:
- No upfront fees or costs
- Contingent based fees
- We get paid, only if we win
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tselnerlaw.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tselnerlaw/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tselnerlaw/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@arkadytselner9202
- Other: https://share.google/fiF48IVm7CisXV2EV
