Matthew A. Hodel

Matt Hodel has been a trial lawyer for more than 30 years, concentrating in complex civil litigation. For 15 years he was a litigation partner with a major international law firm, and the Chair of its Orange County office’s litigation practice. In 2003, with other members of the same firm, he formed Hodel Briggs Winter LLP.

Professional Highlights

• Successful jury and bench trials and arbitrations for plaintiffs and defendants, throughout California, outside this state, and in Europe. His trial results include: a $6.6 million jury verdict, after an eight-week trial, and a unanimous finding of malice, against one of the nation’s largest supermarket retailers; a successful finding of specific performance, including of malice and an award of punitive damages over a 200,000+SF shopping center for his client, a NYSE REIT; a two week trial in downtown Los Angeles over unfair competition issues, where the jury, after deliberating less than one hour, returned a complete defense verdict, and full recovery on a cross-complaint, for his client, a prominent national restaurant chain; and a jury defense verdict in an invasion of privacy case in favor of a well-known mortgage company.
• Complex, high-stakes disputes over virtually every facet of the fields of real estate, banking and lending.
• Lead defense counsel in a 12-0 jury verdict in what was labeled “The Longest Civil Jury Trial in Riverside County History.”
• Representation of a nationally-known accounting firm what was considered to be the largest bank audit malpractice case in Orange County history.
• Diverse IP disputes including: a landmark trademark infringement decision that he successfully argued to summary judgment to the trial court and then argued again to the Ninth Circuit, resulting in published opinions in both instances; an international software arbitration in London; a dot.com valuation trial; and many unfair competition, valuation, software, trade secret and related issues.
• Clean-up litigation arising from one the largest bank failures in U.S. history.
• Successful written and oral argument to the California Supreme Court favoring the retroactive application of Proposition 64, the citizen’s ballot initiative which curbed certain abusive business tort lawsuits.
• Preventive pre-litigation counseling.

In the Community

For six straight years, the publishers of Los Angeles Magazine and Law & Politics have selected him as a “Southern California Super Lawyer” in the area of Business Litigation.

He has authored articles on litigation or legal ethics for The California Lawyer, The American Bar Association Journal, The Los Angeles Lawyer, California Real Property Journal and California Law Business.

He is an active lecturer and has been a speaker on litigation, ethics and professional responsibility to: the California Banker’s Association; the UCI Irvine Paul Merage School of Business; California Continuing Education of the Bar’s Advanced Federal Practice, California Civil Practice Before Trial, Fundamentals of Civil Trial Practice, Fundamentals of Business Practices Litigation, Recent Developments in California Civil Litigation and Effective Jury Voir Dire; the Association of Business Trial Lawyers and the Orange County Trial Lawyers Association, on jury selection, Orange County Bar Association, to its general section, Avoiding Legal Malpractice, and to its corporate counsel section, Special Issues of Professional Responsibility for In-House Counsel; and Whittier Law School.

Mr. Hodel has been a member of the Board of Governors of the Bowers Museum. He is head coach of the award winning Tesoro High School Mock Trial Team. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Orange County Constitutional Rights Foundation, which strives to enhance young people’s awareness and appreciation of the U.S. Constitution, and he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers (Orange County Chapter). He has served as a member of the Orange County Bar Association’s Judiciary Committee, and as its chair, which is responsible for making recommendations to the Governor’s office regarding the selection of appellate and superior court judges. He is a member of the United States District Court, Central District of California’s Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel.

Education

He received his B.A. degree, with highest honors, from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo in 1977. He received his J.D. degree in 1980 from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where he was a Note and Comment Editor and author on The Hastings Law Journal. After law school, he was litigation associate with McCutchen, Black, Verleger and Shea (1980-82), and an associate and partner with Paul Hastings LLP (1983-2003).