Hon. Stephen G. Larson (Ret.)

The Honorable Stephen G. Larson is a highly respected former United States District Judge and an accomplished national trial lawyer since returning to private practice in 2009. He is also a trusted advisor to senior executives and prominent domestic and international businesses.

Judge Larson brings 30 years of trial and appellate experience to NAM (National Arbitration and Mediation), and has been lead counsel in scores of jury trials and appeals in the federal and state courts, including trials in California and D.C. courts and appeals before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the California Supreme Court and the California Court of Appeal. The Daily Journal, California’s leading legal newspaper, has recognized Judge Larson as oneof the Top 100 lawyers in California for the past three consecutive years, noting his achievements as lead trial counsel in his white collar and civil trial practices.

Judge Larson’s civil practice is broad, having represented individuals and public and private companies of all sizes as plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes disputes, including intellectual property, real property and land use, complex contract issues, business torts, employment, securities, class actions, and environmental lawsuits. He regularly represents companies in the entertainment, technology, financial services, real estate, healthcare, and energy and natural resources industries. In addition, he is frequently engaged as an arbitrator and mediator in complex commercial disputes.

His white-collar criminal defense practice includes representing businesses in government investigations and prosecutions related to an array of issues, including public corruption, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), domestic and international sanctions issues, the False Claims Act, healthcare laws, and financial controls. Judge Larson also represents companies, executives, lawyers, doctors, and public figures at all stages of white-collar criminal matters from investigations to trial. His criminal defense practice includes conducting internal investigations for companies, public entities, boards, and committees.

In 2018, Judge Larson was awarded the Daily Journal’s California Lawyer Attorneys of the Year Award (CLAY) for his trial advocacy in The People of the State of California v. Paul Biane et al., which former California Attorney General Jerry Brown touted as one of the most significant public corruption matters in California history. After an eight-month trial, he secured a complete defense verdict for developer Jeff Burum, defeating allegations that three county officials took bribes from Burum in exchange for their approval for a $102 million settlement of a land dispute.

Prior to his service on the bench and as a private litigator, he was appointed Assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California in 1991, where he served as the Chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Division. As a prosecutor, he led 24 criminal trials, was responsible for 49 appeals before the Ninth Circuit, and received the U.S. Department of Justice Director’s Award for Superior Performance from Attorney General Janet Reno. Judge Larson also conducted joint training exercises and investigations with foreign law enforcement agencies in Russia, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, the Ukraine, and South Korea.

He departed the United States Attorney’s Office in 2000 to serve as a Magistrate Judge in the Central District of California. In 2005, President George W. Bush nominated Mr. Larson to serve as a District Judge. As a federal judge, he adjudicated over a thousand cases and was designated seven times to serve on the Ninth Circuit. Judge Larson was a member of the Ninth Circuit’s Jury Instruction Committee responsible for drafting and publishing model jury instructions. He was also a founding member of the State Department’s Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan, traveling to that war-torn nation to meet judges, prosecutors, and other government officials.

During his nearly ten years as a federal judge, Hon. Larson presided over a number of high-profile cases, including the “Barbie vs. Bratz” copyright infringement dispute between toymakers Mattel and Bratz, and Siegel v. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., which determined the ownership of the copyrights to the iconic comic strip Superman. He also presided in United States v. Nazario, a landmark Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act case involving U.S. Marines accused of manslaughter during the Battle of Fallujah; United States v. Duro, in which he blocked the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs’ decade long effort to close down and expel a major migrant worker camp on the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation; and John Doe v. County of San Bernardino, which resulted in systematic reform of educational and therapeutic services for disabled youths within the county juvenile hall system.

Judge Larson has also conducted law enforcement training at the FBI National Academy at Quantico and overseas on money laundering, asset forfeiture, and U.S. banking regulations. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Catholic Charities, Los Angeles, and a Director of National Community Renaissance, a national non-profit low-income housing development corporation.

Judge Larson is available to arbitrate and mediate cases throughout the United States.