Zac Winkler has always known that representing plaintiffs was never just a career path;
it was a family business built on caring about others.
Growing up the son of two plaintiff attorneys, dinner conversations often turned to
clients and the fights his parents waged on their behalf. Zac listened closely, eager to
understand what that work looked like day to day. “The lesson I took from those early
conversations was that lawyers can be a tool for good, for individuals and for society,”
he says. “We were raised to believe that the work you do should be meaningful and that
you should work to help other people.”
After law school, Zac completed a fellowship with the National Whistleblowers Center, where he worked with individuals reporting corporate wrongdoing and perpetrating
environmental harms. The experience sharpened a question that has guided him ever
since: “What are companies keeping secret, and what are they hiding from the people
who use their products?”
Zac followed that thread through class action practice, working on securities and
antitrust cases and, most recently, on consumer fraud involving contaminants in
everyday products. Along the way, he worked closely with experts to understand toxic
exposure, dug into what companies knew and when they knew it, and built experience
in false advertising litigation. “All of it came together,” he says. “It turned out to be the
education I needed for the work I’m doing now.”
At Locks Law Firm, Zac’s work focuses on benzene litigation. The work can be
sobering. “Seeing clients develop cancer because of exposure in the course of their
work is hard,” Zac says. “And it’s incredible to look at the calculated risks companies
take when it comes to harming consumers.”
Moving from class actions to representing individual clients has changed how he
experiences that work. “A class action is a group seeking economic relief. Representing
an individual means representing a person and their humanity, not just their economic
interest. That inspires me in a different way.”
Zac is candid about the hardest parts of the job. Compensation can address economic
losses, but it can’t undo physical harm. When a client passes away before their case is
resolved, a victory can feel hollow for the family left behind.
“The work isn’t important without the clients,” he says. “When we can’t get them the
justice they deserve, that’s devastating. But the only answer to frustration is to redouble
our efforts.”
Zac hopes that one day, people will think about benzene the way they think about
asbestos, and that the reckoning will come faster and more completely this time. “With
asbestos, it took far too long. My hope for benzene is that the change is quicker and
more forceful.”
In the meantime, he’s eager to bring that fight into the courtroom. “I’m very excited
about trial work,” he says. “Being in court on our team trying a case is what this is all
about.”
