Dan Lawton

Shareholder, Certified Specialist in Appellate Law

Executive Profile

Dan Lawton is a Shareholder with Klinedinst PC, practicing out of the firm’s San Diego and Irvine offices. Dan earned his J.D. degree at Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as an editor of the American Criminal Law Review. Afterward, Dan served for one year as a law clerk to Ninth Circuit Judge Thomas Tang in Phoenix, Arizona. Dan practiced law with the San Diego office of Luce Forward Hamilton & Scripps LLP for several years before launching his own law practice in downtown San Diego. Dan operated Lawton Law Firm for twenty-four years after that, training several young lawyers, all of whom were his former law students. 

In late 2019, Dan joined the San Diego office of Klinedinst PC.  He currently practices out of both the San Diego and Irvine offices, focusing on appellate and intellectual property litigation matters.

Throughout his career, Dan has specialized in civil appeals and civil trial work. He is certified as a legal specialist in Appellate Law by the State Bar’s California Board of Legal Specialization. 

He has handled intellectual property litigation on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants. Dan is also a counselor. He counsels both corporate and individual clients in a variety of settings, often in negotiations. His corporate clients have included companies whose stock is publicly traded and companies whose stock is closely held. They have included life sciences companies, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers and distributors of various products, landowners and property developers, large corporations, a local major league baseball franchise, automobile dealerships, and “mom-and-pop” businesses. 

His individual clients have included victims of civil rights violations by police departments, officers, directors, and shareholders (both majority and minority) of corporations, bankers, elected officials, politicians, professional athletes and coaches, attorneys, accountants, landowners, entrepreneurs, entertainers, and other individuals. 

Dan has handled civil appeals and writs in both the California and federal courts. Dan has tried multiple jury trials, bench trials, and arbitrations. He has litigated many cases to disposition short of trial (by way of motions to dismiss and for summary judgment). Dan obtained the third-largest jury verdict in Imperial County (for $14,286,461, after a nine-week jury trial). His caseload has included cases involving civil rights violations by police departments, patent infringement, copyright infringement, trade secret theft, unfair competition, defamation, and business torts. 

Dan has presented CLE courses to audiences of lawyers and judges for over twenty years. 

In 2024 and 2025, he lectured at the Pincus Professional Education Ninth and Tenth Annual Advanced Appellate Conferences on statements of decision and post-trial motions, on panels which included Court of Appeal Justices John Segal and Elizabeth Grimes and distinguished appellate practitioner Gerald Serlin, in Los Angeles. In February 2025, he presented a program, Your Jury, on jury trial practice to a national audience. 

In 2026, Dan presented three additional Pincus CLE programs to statewide audiences on appellate practice, jury selection, post-trial motions, and appellate standards of review. 

Dan has also presented trial skills programs to audiences of lawyers and judges at Association of Business Trial Lawyers programs in San Diego. 

Dan is an adjunct professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where he teaches an appellate advocacy course. Dan also taught a Directed Study course at the law school in 2013. In it, students collected and organized data concerning demurrer practice in the California courts. 

Dan is a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Daily Journal and other legal publications. His writing has also appeared in California Litigation, The Daily Transcript, The Sheepshead Review, and The Pensive Quill. 

Dan co-founded Klinedinst PC’s Attorney Training College in January 2020 with colleague Dave Majchrzak. The program provides ongoing MCLE instruction to the firm’s attorneys in litigation skills, professionalism, ethics, and civility. As of July 2026, the College has presented thirty (30) programs to Klinedinst attorneys firmwide, resulting in nearly 1,000 hours of MCLE credit given. 

Dan also serves on the law firm’s Writing Committee, which offers guidance and feedback on written work prepared by attorneys before its filing, delivery to a client, or publication at no cost to the firm’s clients. 

He also serves on the Editorial Board of California Litigation and has served as a Master and Team Leader in the J. Clifford Wallace Chapter of the American Inns of Court since 2015, where he develops continuing legal education programs and has received multiple annual Best Program honors from his peers. 

In his spare time, Dan worked for several years as a volunteer in the Family Literacy Program at St. Vincent de Paul Village in San Diego and at Mama’s Kitchen (a nonprofit agency that delivers meals to men, women, and children affected by AIDS and other critical illnesses). He has also served as a mentor at Nativity Prep Academy (a tuition-free, inner-city Catholic middle school for at-risk children in Logan Heights). 

Education 

• University of Notre Dame (B.A.)  
• Georgetown University Law Center (J.D.) 

Professional and Community Affiliations

Recognition and Awards

Speaking Engagements

“The Art of Jury Selection in California – The Nuts and Bolts,” Pincus Professional Education (January 29, 2026)
“Mastering the Standards of Review,” Pincus Professional Education (February 12, 2026) — presented alongside Justice Douglas P. Miller and Judge Kira L. Klatchko.
“Pre-Trial Matters,” Pincus Professional Education, 20th Annual Superior Court Boot Camp: The Nuts and Bolts (October 23, 2025)

Notable Oral Arguments

Argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC v. Intervening Advisors, et al., Case No. 25-4575 (Pasadena, California, November 17, 2025)

Publications

  • Above the Ground: A True Story of the Troubles in Northern Ireland (WildBlue Press, 2023), published in Europe as Hunted: The Kevin Barry Artt Story (Merrion Press, 2024)
  • “The Death of the Reserve Clause, Fifty Years On,” California Litigation (June 2026)
  • “A Glimpse into the ‘Special Relationship’ in U.S. Courts,” Los Angeles Daily Journal (May 4 2026)
  • “Why It’s Time for Older Judges to Retire and Make Way for Younger Generations,” Los Angeles Daily Journal (July 18 2024)
  • “Working: Conversations with Essential Workers,” California Litigation, Volume 37, No. 1 (May 2024)
  • “A Trial Lawyer in Full: The Life and Career of James J. Brosnahan,” California Litigation, Volume 36, No. 2 (September 2023)
  • “U.S. v. Nixon, 50 Years Later,” California Litigation, Volume 35, No. 2 (October 2022)
  • “What I’ve Learned,” California Litigation, Volume 35, No. 1 (May 2022)
  • “A Lion in Winter: Senior Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace at 92,” California Litigation, Volume 34, No. 3 (January 2022)
  • “The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law,” Edited by Jeffrey S. Sutton and Edward Whelan (reviewed by Dan Lawton) California Litigation, Volume 34, No. 1 (2021)
  • “We’re the Biggest Part of the Problem,” Los Angeles Daily Journal (2020)
  • “The Stringfellow Acid Pits: The Legal and Toxic Legacy,” by Brian Craig (reviewed by Dan Lawton) California Litigation, vol. 33, no. 2, (2020)
  • “Meeting the Moment” Los Angeles Daily Journal (2020)
  • “Annexation, Legally Speaking” Los Angeles Daily Journal (August 20, 2019)
  • “The Most Newsworthy Part of a Person’s Entire Life” Los Angeles Daily Journal (May 29, 2019)
  • “Freshly Cut Grass and Protective Netting” Los Angeles Daily Journal (April 3, 2018)
  • “Open NCAA Basketball Tournament to all Teams” Los Angeles Daily Journal (March 16, 2018)
  • “Which Office Do I Go to to Get My Reputation Back?” Los Angeles Daily Journal (December 15, 2017)
  • “Players’ Protests a Pointless, Costless Joke” The Daily Transcript (October 3, 2017)
  • “San Diego’s Marvelous, Artless New Courthouse” Los Angeles Daily Journal (June 9, 2017)
  • “The Elephant in the Originalism Room” Los Angeles Daily Journal (April 17, 2017)
  • “Lawyer, Lawyer, Pants On Fire” Los Angeles Daily Journal, March 13, 2017)
  • “Telling Truth About Racial Profiling” San Diego Union-Tribune (August 5, 2016)
  • “Springsteen’s – and Trump’s – America” Los Angeles Daily Journal, (June 21, 2016)
  • “Somehow We All Made it Through Last Monday: Tax Day” Los Angeles Daily Journal (April 26, 2016)
  • “American Exceptionalism and Michael Townley” Los Angeles Daily Journal (March 8, 2016)
  • “End the Incivility Plague in Our Profession” Los Angeles Daily Journal (September 4, 2015)
  • “Sometimes, Lawyers Work Against Human Rights” Los Angeles Daily Journal (August 19, 2015)
  • “Brady Tosses Lawyers Some Lessons” Los Angeles Daily Journal (August 5, 2015)
  • “Lawyers Turned Venture Capitalists: A Cautionary Tale” Los Angeles Daily Journal (July 17, 2015)
  • “The Hated, Caustic, and Honest Scalia” Los Angeles Daily Journal (July 10, 2015)
  • “The Frontiers of Golf, Law and Capital Markets” San Diego Daily Transcript (June 24, 2015)
  • “Cochran Legacy a Model for Young Lawyers” Los Angeles Daily Journal (June 10, 2015)
  • “Take a closer look at physician-assisted suicide bill” Los Angeles Daily Journal (May 27, 2015)
  • “A Major Moment for the Major Leagues” Los Angeles Daily Journal (April 22, 2015)
  • “Untouchable – The Problem of Prosecutorial Misconduct” San Diego Daily Transcript (April 8, 2015)
  • “Ending Prosecutorial Unaccountability” Los Angeles Daily Journal (April 2, 2015)
  • “SDSU No. 1 in your heart, No. 64 in the classroom” San Diego Daily Transcript (March 25, 2015)
  • “Lessons in business, courage and service” San Diego Daily Transcript (March 11, 2015)
  • “I Dare You, Mr. Mayor” San Diego Daily Transcript (January 22, 2015);
  • “Torture, and never having to say sorry” Daily Journal (December 26, 2014)
  • “John Lennon and his American lawyer” Daily Journal (December 2, 2013)
  • “Moving your law offices: too much stuff” Daily Journal (October 22, 2013)
  • “Lessons Learned From The Paris Peace Accords” The Recorder (June 7, 2013)
  • “Lessons Abound From Peace Accord Negotiations” Los Angeles Daily Journal (May 24, 2013)
  • “The Devilish Things Court Do” The Recorder (May 13, 2013)
  • “Torturous Logic, Ten Years Later” The Recorder (May 6, 2013)
  • “Norb Ehrenfreund and the International Criminal Court” Los Angeles Daily Journal (February 7, 2013)
  • “Fraud Statute Invites Bogus Corruption Charges: Part 1” Los Angeles Daily Journal (October 30, 2012)
  • “Fraud Statute Invites Bogus Corruption Charges: Part 2” Los Angeles Daily Journal (November 5, 2012)
  • “Sister Kathleen Marie and the Code of Canon Law” The Daily Transcript (July 30, 2012)
  • “Andy Griffith, William Rehnquist and a ‘Man in a Hurry’” Los Angeles Daily Journal (July 09, 2012)
  • “William Mulholland And His Lawyer, 100 years later” Los Angeles Daily Journal (June 13, 2012)
  • “Flood v. Kuhn and justice versus law: Part 2” Los Angeles Daily Journal (May 31, 2012)
  • “Flood v. Kuhn and justice versus law: Part 1” Los Angeles Daily Journal (May 30, 2012)
  • “Idiosyncratic Jurist Is His Own Man” Los Angeles Daily Journal, (November 10, 2011)
  • “D Lawton, Thomas Tang, Robert Boochever, and the War between Law and Justice” Los Angeles Daily Journal (October 28-31, 2011)
  • “An Open Letter from Frank McCourt to Bud Selig” Los Angeles Daily Journal (June 20, 2011)
  • “The Day Lawyers Took Over Baseball” Los Angeles Daily Journal, May (17-18, 2010)
  • “Untouchable” Los Angeles Daily Journal (March 29, 2010);
  • “Everything Must Go” Los Angeles Daily Journal (February 17-18, 2010)
  • “For Lawyers and Politicians Alike, Regret Can Be a Valuable Thing” Los Angeles Daily Journal (January 9, 2009)
  • “Beyond Civility Codes” Los Angeles Daily Journal (August 14, 2007);
  • “Living in an Age of Phony Apologies” Los Angeles Daily Journal, (February 24, 2004)
  • “Fair Shake? Arbitration Industry Has No Incentive to Reform a System That Serves It Well” Los Angeles Daily Journal (July 24, 2002)
  • “Torts Need No Reform; Laws Already Protect Real Victims” Los Angeles Daily Journal (September 4, 2001)

Media

  • Interviewed in “Courts Freeze on Same-Sex Marriage” KUSI-TV (August 16, 2010)
  • Interviewed in “San Diego Defense Attorney Appointed to Represent Accused Shooter” KUSI-TV (January 10, 2011)

Related News

Admissions



  • U.S. Supreme Court



  • U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Federal, Ninth, and Fifth Circuits



  • U.S. District Courts for the Central, Northern, and Southern Districts of California



  • U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana



  • U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas



  • California


Practice Areas

Contact

AV BadgeSL Badge