Kathleen Ruigomez showed up at a 2013 mediation of her lawsuit against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to find that her lawyer, Tom Girardi, had already settled her family’s case.

When she asked for how much, he told her he obtained $5 million for her son, Joseph Ruigomez, who in 2010 was severely injured from a gas pipeline explosion in their front yard. She and her ex-husband, Joseph’s father, would each receive $1 million, and their daughter $250,000. A year later, she received a form from another Girardi Keese attorney, Robert Finnerty, which showed a settlement that was supposed to pay her son $9.9 million.