Most of the firm's work involves negotiating with insurance companies, especially for uninsured accident victims who can collect only out-of-pocket medical costs and lost wages. Proposition 213, a 1996 ballot initiative, prohibits compensation for pain, suffering, disfigurement and other non-monetary damages to those driving without coverage.
The firm also wages 1st Amendment battles for riders who have been victims of discrimination and fights what the biker bar sees as bad legislation across the country.
Lester, odd man out in a tie and suspenders, founded the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, a biker lobby that promotes safety and defends the free-speech principles that the riding community hold dear.
Riders now are as likely to be educated professionals as ponytailed leather-clad rumblers, says the firm's founder, referring to those who have diversified the riding crowd as RUBs: rich, urban bikers.
Still, he says, most people retain an image of bikers as tough customers looking for trouble.
Private establishments have prevailed in excluding bikers displaying overt signs of club membership, whether the "one-percenters" associated with crime and violence or riding groups united by faith, interest or profession, Lester said. Christian Unity, he says, is the fastest-growing bikers club.
As governments impose laws meant to crack down on gang activity, they have swept bikers into the definition by prohibiting identifying logos and patches, Lester says.
"There may be someone doing something illegal. But you shouldn't come in and paint everyone with a broad brush," he said.
Joey Lester, the founder's son, took the case of four members of the Top Hatters riding club who'd been thrown out of the Gilroy Garlic Festival through eight years of state and federal court challenges. He lost in the final review by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last fall because the festival was protected by private security, not government law enforcement.
The younger Lester, who said he doesn't ride much anymore because he's got a 2-year-old child he wants to see through to adulthood, accuses the government of targeting bikers for their individuality.
"They want a Stepford America," said the lawyer, his boot-clad feet propped up on a carved desk. "The way they define gangs could apply to the Boy Scouts."
Bob Poelker of Hollister, one of the four riders tossed from the garlic festival in 2001, attests to the importance of having riders defend riders.
