Newport Beach Personal Injury Lawyer

If you have been seriously injured in Newport Beach, you should not have to navigate your case through layers of case managers. At Kubota & Craig, founding partners Yoshiaki C. Kubota and Cynthia A. Craig personally handle every case the firm accepts, giving clients direct access to the attorneys responsible for their claim. The firm has recovered more than $200 million for injury victims and holds a National Tier 1 ranking in Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs from Best Law Firms®. From an office a short drive inland in Irvine, Kubota & Craig represents people hurt across Newport Beach — on Coast Highway and the Balboa Peninsula, on its bike routes and beaches, and on the water in Newport Harbor.

Your Case Is Handled by the Lawyers Whose Names Are on the Firm

At many firms, the attorney you sign with is not the person who works your case afterward — the file is handed to a case manager, and you may rarely speak with the lawyer again. Kubota & Craig is built the opposite way. From the first call through the resolution of your claim, Yoshi Kubota and Cynthia Craig are personally responsible for the work: the strategy, the negotiations, and the courtroom if it comes to that. Both founding partners are past presidents of the Orange County Trial Lawyers Association (OCTLA), the county’s trial bar (Yoshi Kubota in 2011, Cynthia Craig in 2021). When the other side knows the lawyers whose names are on the door are prepared to go to trial, it strengthens your position in every negotiation.

Newport Beach Personal Injury Cases We Handle

We represent people across every major kind of serious-injury case in Newport Beach, including the coastal, cycling, and harbor injuries that are common here:

Newport Harbor also produces boating, personal-watercraft, and paddleboard injuries, and the beaches and boardwalks produce bicycle, e-bike, and pedestrian injuries that do not look like an ordinary street collision. If you are not sure how your injury fits, contact us and we will tell you honestly whether it is something we handle.

Why Injured Newport Beach Clients Choose Kubota & Craig

Yoshiaki C. Kubota (California Bar #175555) has more than 30 years of trial experience, served as president of OCTLA in 2011, and has been named to Super Lawyers every year since 2010 and to Best Lawyers in America since 2025. Cynthia A. Craig (California Bar #226318) has more than 20 years representing injured people and is a trial lawyer who has tried dozens of cases to verdict; a past president of OCTLA (2021), she has been recognized by Best Lawyers in America (2022–2026) and Super Lawyers (2024–2026). Both founding partners are personally involved in every case — the attorney you meet is the attorney who handles your claim.

How we work a case is straightforward: we investigate quickly and preserve the evidence that disappears (reports, video, vehicle and device data, witnesses), we build the full value of the claim with the medical and financial proof, and we negotiate from a position of strength — because insurers know we prepare every case as if it will be tried. That readiness is reflected in results that include a $51.5 million recovery in a fatal highway-collision case.

What Kubota & Craig Clients Say

These reviews are from Kubota & Craig clients, including in Newport Beach, and reflect individual experiences. Every case is different, and these results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Understanding Injuries in Newport Beach

The sections below summarize what public records say about injuries in Newport Beach — traffic data, the City’s new e-bike rules, its current road and pedestrian projects, and Newport Harbor. They are here as local context for residents and visitors, and to show that the firm knows the ground it works on. They are not a prediction about any particular road, corner, or beach, and they are not how the firm values a case. Every claim turns on its own facts.

What Newport Beach traffic data shows — and why speed stands out

According to the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), Newport Beach recorded 500 people killed or injured in traffic collisions in 2021, 452 in 2022, and 494 in 2023 — a total that barely moved over three years. Underneath that flat total, most categories improved: bicyclist victims fell from 84 to 59, alcohol-involved victims and motorcycle victims both dropped sharply, and DUI arrests declined. One category moved the other way.

Speed-related fatal and injury collisions rose from 132 in 2021 to 149 in 2023. In the OTS 2023 comparison of similarly grouped incorporated cities, Newport Beach ranked 1 of 103 in the speed-related fatal/injury collision category, and 4 of 103 for bicyclist victims. OTS cautions that its rankings are indicators of potential traffic-safety problems, not definitive measures of how dangerous a city is, and that its incorporated-city figures cover local streets and certain shared state highways but exclude freeways the city does not control.

When speed is disputed in a serious collision, the proof usually is not the driver’s word. It is event-data-recorder downloads, vehicle telematics, dashcam and surveillance video, skid and impact evidence, signal timing, posted limits, and reconstruction. Preserving those before they are overwritten or repaired is part of the early work on a case.

Newport Beach e-bikes and the City’s new 2026 rules

Newport Beach has become one of the most active cities in the county on e-bike safety. The City adopted updated bicycle and e-bike ordinances in 2025 (including Ordinance No. 2025-35), and its public materials say the new rules took effect in January 2026. The City says the rules address conduct such as riding against traffic, weaving through pedestrians, distracted riding, riding at night without lights, improper passengers, and disobeying traffic controls, with a diversion process for some first-time juvenile violations.

The City also reports that its police department’s bicycle and e-bike safety presentations reached more than 7,500 community members during the program’s first two years (2021–2023), at schools and neighborhood organizations across the city — including Corona del Mar High and Middle Schools, Ensign Middle School, Newport Elementary, and Mariners Elementary. For an injured rider or a pedestrian hit by an e-bike, which specific rule was broken — and where the crash happened — can matter to a claim.

Newport Beach Police track e-bike crashes specifically

In a 2024 response to an Orange County Grand Jury report, the City explained that the Newport Beach Police Department’s records system is configured to flag e-bike involvement in traffic crashes, and that the department can retrieve data such as the primary collision factor, which party was coded at fault, and the ages of the people involved. That is more detail than most cities capture, and it means the right public-records request can surface information that is directly relevant to how an e-bike crash actually happened.

An e-bike case also turns on evidence an ordinary car case never involves, and what the bike actually is can decide it: the make, model, and class (1, 2, or 3), the motor and top assisted speed, the battery and controller, and any aftermarket modifications that changed how fast it could go. Add the rider’s helmet, any app or GPS ride data from the bike or a phone, clear photographs of the device before it is repaired or discarded, and the NBPD e-bike-coded crash record, and you have a picture of how a crash happened that a generic injury page never captures. Much of that evidence disappears quickly, which is why the early work on an e-bike claim matters.

Beaches, bike lanes, and sidewalks are not the same thing here

Newport Beach’s 2025 beach bicycle/e-bike ordinance (Ordinance No. 2025-6) documents how much coastline and cycling network the City manages, and it restricts bicycles and e-bikes on City beaches while pointing riders to a separate on-street network. In practice, a beach, a boardwalk, a sidewalk, a bike lane, and a City street can each carry different rules — so where an incident happened is not a detail.

Current Newport Beach pedestrian and road-safety projects

Newport Beach’s current capital program identifies specific pedestrian projects, which say more about the City’s own view of its streets than any list of “dangerous roads” would:

• Via Lido / Via Oporto — a $250,000 project. The City says it plans to relocate the crosswalk to the east side of the intersection to reduce conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles turning left into Lido Village, with related curb, drainage, signage, and striping work.
• West Coast Highway / Superior Avenue – Balboa Boulevard — a $30.275 million programmed project that includes a new pedestrian bridge over West Coast Highway with connecting ramps, plus intersection improvements.
• Santa Ana Avenue — a planned $1.85 million sidewalk project from Old Newport Boulevard to Cliff Drive, programmed for later years (a future improvement, not a finished one).

Construction conditions change week to week. For current lane and closure impacts, the City maintains a traffic advisories page.

Boating and watercraft injuries in Newport Harbor

Newport Harbor is a genuinely different injury environment. City navigation information describes a harbor that reaches more than three miles into the Back Bay, with heavy vessel traffic at the entrance channel and a 5 mph, no-wake rule throughout. The City also treats stand-up paddleboards as vessels when operated in the harbor, subject to boating-safety requirements, and identifies the Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol as the law-enforcement and emergency provider on the water.

A harbor injury claim can turn on evidence a car case never involves — vessel and rental records, Harbor Patrol reports, GPS or chartplotter data, marina and dock surveillance, weather and tide conditions, and safety-equipment information. It also helps to know who holds the records: the City’s Harbor Department handles municipal harbor services and code enforcement, while the Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol handles on-water law enforcement and emergencies, and private marinas control their own footage and paperwork.

Which agency has your accident records?

In Newport Beach, the right records are spread across several agencies. Knowing which one to ask — quickly, before video is overwritten — can matter to a claim.

One practical point: a police collision report and a Fire or EMS incident report are separate records, requested from different departments. If paramedics, a beach rescue, or an ambulance were involved, the Newport Beach Fire Department has its own incident-report request process, and that report can document injuries and response details a police report does not.

If the City of Newport Beach may be responsible for an injury

Some injuries involve a public agency — a dangerous condition on a City street or sidewalk, a City facility or vehicle, or public property. The City Attorney’s office directs claims against the City to the City Clerk at 100 Civic Center Drive, Newport Beach, CA 92660, and the City’s materials say a claim generally must be presented within six months of the injury — far shorter than the deadline for most lawsuits. Because these Government Claims Act deadlines are strict and identifying the correct entity matters, have an attorney review them right away.

Emergency medical resources in Newport Beach

Orange County EMS lists Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach (One Hoag Drive) among the county’s EMS hospitals. Where a patient is taken depends on the nature and severity of the injury and on EMS protocols at the time — not every injury goes to the same place, and where someone is treated does not decide what a claim is worth.

How a Newport Beach Injury Claim Works

California injury claims run on a few core rules. A person or business is responsible when their negligence causes injury. If you are found partly at fault, California uses comparative negligence, which reduces — but does not erase — your recovery. A successful claim can recover medical costs, lost income and earning capacity, and pain and suffering, and in a wrongful-death case, the losses close family members suffer. Deadlines are strict: most California injury lawsuits must be filed within two years, but a claim against a public entity generally must be presented within six months, which is why it is worth talking to a lawyer early.

Newport Beach Personal Injury FAQs

Sources and Research Methodology