{ }

ERACLIS E. PELARGOS

EDUCATION

ERACLIS E. PELARGOS obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of California,
Los Angeles. While at UCLA, he received the Jim Papangelin Memorial Scholarship Award and was
involved with the Pre-Law Society and the Hellenic-American Student Organization. Mr. Pelargos
continued on to receive his Juris Doctor from Albany Law School in New York, where he was involved in
the Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity and received the LexisNexis Professional Research Certification.

BACKGROUND

Mr. Pelargos began his career as a Legal Assistant specializing in patent and trademark law. He
conducted legal research, drafted and filed patent applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office
and filed pleadings with the Los Angeles Superior Court. While attending law school, Mr. Pelargos
interned with a large Workers’ Compensation Defense firm for two summers. Some of his tasks included
reviewing medical reports, drafting deposition summaries, settling outstanding liens and creating new file
summaries. He also shadowed one of the managing partners of the firm in trials, depositions and cross
examinations, and client interactions. Upon graduating law school, he began working as a Hearing
Representative and a Paralegal at the defense firm he was previously interned at. Mr. Pelargos has
successfully litigated both case-in-chief and lien claims from case commencement all the way through
trial. He has experience managing a large caseload and has been recognized among clients for his high
closure rate. Mr. Pelargos is fluent in Greek and speaks conversational Spanish with the ability to read
and write.

Mr. Pelargos is a Hearing Representative in our Encino Office.

AURORA R. AYALA

EDUCATION

Aurora Ayala obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in 1999 from Pepperdine University, where she majored in Business Management. She also attended a Workers’ Compensation program through the University of Southern California.

BACKGROUND

Ms. Ayala began her career as a Hearing Representative in the area of Workers’ Compensation in 1990. She has attended a wide array of seminars on Workers’ Compensation and all its facets. She has covered over 700 appearances at Mandatory Settlement Conferences, Rating Conferences, Status Conferences, Trials, Vocational Rehabilitation Formals, depositions of applicants and witnesses and cross-examinations of physicians at various venues such as the San Diego, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Long Beach, Pomona, Riverside, San Bernardino, Oxnard, Bakersfield, Fresno, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, San Jose, Redding and Marysville Appeals Boards.

She has also taught several seminars on rating including Rating under AMA Guidelines, and the Supplemental Job Displacement/Voucher issues.

She began working with Samuelsen, Gonzalez, Valenzuela & Brown in early 2005 as a Hearing Representative in the Newport Beach office. Prior to that she worked at another defense firm for more than four years and prior to that she brought with her over 14 years of expertise and knowledge of handling applicants’ claims.

Sidebar