Tony M. Sain is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Lewis Brisbois, a Vice Chair of the General Liability Practice and Co-Chair of its Civil Rights & Police Litigation Defense Task Force, and a member of the National Trial and Appellate Practices. He focuses his practice on high exposure, high-stakes, high-profile matters in a wide variety of catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases across a number of practice areas, including personal injury, tort litigation, as well as police civil rights and public entity defense. Throughout his career, Mr. Sain has served as lead trial attorney in multiple high-profile jury and administrative trials, consistently securing defense verdicts, complete dismissals of claims, and other favorable outcomes on behalf of his clients, as well as racking up an impressive number of wins as an appellate court advocate. 

Mr. Sain is also a Member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA): a prestigious and elite association of widely admired jury trial attorneys. Named a Rising Star by Super Lawyers from 2013-2017, he was recognized by that publication and by the Los Angeles Business Journal as a top-rated civil rights attorney in Los Angeles. Before practicing law, Mr. Sain served as a senior executive in a variety of corporate and non-profit organizations, where he specialized in high-stakes organizational overhauls and community outreach. Outside of his practice at Lewis Brisbois, Mr. Sain serves on the panel for prosecuting criminal cases for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office on a pro bono basis. Mr. Sain was also an adjunct professor for trial advocacy at Los Angeles’ esteemed Loyola Law School. 

Moreover, Mr. Sain is the author of “Pitchess Privileges and the CPRA: Police Officer Personnel and Investigative Records Privileges and their Intersection with the California Public Records Act”: a leading resource manual on the intricacies of California’s complex officer privacy laws and their intersection with the California Public Records Act. 

Mr. Sain is a graduate of Princeton University’s elite School of Public and International Affairs, where he learned executive-level governance. He is also a graduate of Loyola Law School of Los Angeles’s prestigious Hobbs Trial Advocacy Program, and the Williams Civil Rights Litigation Program, and in law school, he also won the Best Advocate in California award in the National Moot Court competition for appellate advocacy.

Publications

Media Coverage

Professional Presentations

Admissions

• State Bar Admissions
  • California
• United States District Courts
  • United States District Court for the Central District of California
  • United States District Court for the Eastern District of California
  • United States District Court for the Northern District of California
  • United States District Court for the Southern District of California
• United States Courts of Appeals
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• United States Supreme Court

Associations

Member – American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), Los Angeles chapter

Awards & Honors

• 2019 Top Litigator and Trial Attorney – Los Angeles Business Journal
• Super Lawyers Rising Star 2013-2017
• Best Advocate in California award — Scott Moot Court Board (competitive appellate advocacy)

Education

Loyola Law School, Loyola Marymount University

Juris Doctor, 2007

Princeton University

Bachelor of Arts, Public & International Affairs (Mgmt), 1993

Representative Matters

• Mr. Sain and his team won a defense verdict in a federal jury trial in a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department police/civil rights use of force case where, after getting black-out intoxicated, a 19-year-old woman assaulted a civilian at home, and then resisted responding deputies’ efforts to move the handcuffed teen assailant to the safety of a patrol car: kicking and biting a deputy – until she was taken down to the ground. Despite aggressive litigation by her attorneys, amid claims of exacerbation of pre-existing mental illness and graphic photos of a bruised face, after just under three hours of deliberations, on a matter the Sain team inherited from prior counsel only three months before the trial date, the jury delivered a unanimous defense verdict. (Abascal v. County of Los Angeles) 
   
• In a high-publicity, police restraint case for the City of Chula Vista, where plaintiffs were trying to evoke George Floyd style positional asphyxia as the cause of death -- after a middle-aged man suffered a mental breakdown, tried to jump out of a second story window, was restrained first by his family and then by police officers, and who violently resisted the officers’ attempts to de-escalate the situation and to prevent him from harming himself or others, including use of the “full-body” WRAP restraint – Mr. Sain and his team won a unanimous defense verdict in a federal civil rights trial in San Diego against some of the most notorious plaintiffs’ civil rights attorneys in the nation.  After the jury rendered a verdict finding that all of the officers’ prone restraint force, WRAP application, and spit hood application were reasonable uses of force, post-verdict interviews with the jurors also revealed that the jury did not believe plaintiffs’ theory of asphyxia-caused death; but, rather, sided with the defense that the true cause of this tragic death was the man’s pre-existing stress and his over-exertion during the incident. (Nunis v. Chula Vista)
   
• On an officer-involved shooting case, where the suspect had told civilians that he had a gun, and he threatened to shoot people, and where the suspect then ignored officers’ at-gunpoint commands and shoot warnings, and the suspect then made a gun-draw move while charging at an officer, after plaintiffs’ nuclear-level pre-trial demand had been rejected, at trial, plaintiffs still demanded $3M in damages from the jury.  However, Mr. Sain and his team obtained a defense-favorable mixed verdict: including a reduced damages award of only $172.5K, as part of a compromise verdict. (Sartor-Jackson v. County of Riverside)

• Against perhaps the nation’s leading plaintiffs’ police/civil rights trial lawyer, after taking only two robbery victim/incident witness depositions, with welcome direction from the client to forego settlement at any price so that the client entity could have their day in court before the jury, Mr. Sain and his team’s aggressive, trial-centered litigation approach inspired plaintiffs to dismiss their case for zero dollars, just after the start of discovery where, after twice robbing the same convenience store, while wielding a pellet gun that looked like a firearm, as well as a machete, the suspect then ignored at-gunpoint officer commands, and the suspect advanced toward police officers while raising his “gun” into a firing position. (Amador v. City of Lompoc)

• After being retained as separate counsel for the shooting officer, Mr. Sain and his team embraced a novel strategy that prevented plaintiffs from generating a dangerous distortion of the incident record. As a result, on a case where the stolen vehicle suspect had reverse-rammed multiple deputies, and then tried to run over a deputy who had been downed into a kneeling position, forcing the vulnerable deputy to fire in self-defense at the approaching vehicle, from just a few feet in front of its bumper, Mr. Sain and his team’s aggressive, trial-centered litigation approach inspired plaintiffs to dismiss their case for zero dollars on the eve of the deadline for filing a defense motion for summary judgment.  (Corrales v. County of San Diego)

• Mr. Sain and his team, including stellar partners from our Appellate Team, also won back to back California state court appeals in the same year, affirming prior defense jury verdicts in public-entity employment discrimination and retaliation cases. (Ross v. County of Riverside; Salcedo v. County of Riverside)

• Mr. Sain and his team won a defense-favorable verdict for the Riverside County Sheriff and Sheriff’s Department in a federal civil rights jury trial arising from allegations of excessive force and wrongful death associated with prone restraint of a methamphetamine-intoxicated subject, where plaintiff alleged death by restraint/positional asphyxia in the spirit of George Floyd. After a two week trial against some of the nation’s top police/civil rights plaintiffs’ attorneys, the jury unanimously found that the deputies’ handcuffed prone restraint was reasonable/lawful. (Alves v. County of Riverside)
   
• Mr. Sain and his team won a groundbreaking appeal before the Ninth Circuit clarifying that a suspect has no right to Brady disclosures of exculpatory evidence before a criminal proceeding where such evidence could be used, unless the investigators conceal such evidence from the prosecutors – which was not the case in the appeal at issue. (Parker v. County of Riverside)
   
• Mr. Sain and his team won an overwhelming defense verdict for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department in a state civil rights jury trial involving allegations of excessive force arising from an officer-involved shooting of a knife-armed subject. After a six-week trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants: one of the first pro-police verdicts after the anti-police demonstrations of 2020. (Ngo v. County of Riverside)
   
• Mr. Sain and his team won a unanimous defense verdict for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department in a federal civil rights jury trial involving allegations of excessive force arising from a police canine/K9 bite. After a five-day trial and less than 90 minutes of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants.  When the district court later amended the defense judgment into a judgment for plaintiff, Mr. Sain and his team successfully restored the defense judgment by a reversal on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. (Stoner v. County of Riverside)
   
• Mr. Sain and his team obtained an appellate victory when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court’s dismissal of a civil rights case involving an alleged Fourth Amendment violation, concluding that the suit was time-barred. The court also affirmed judgment on the pleadings in favor of the defendants in the same action alleging that the plaintiff was falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted. The case established new precedent that: (1) California Code sec. 356 does not toll the statute of limitations while a criminal appeal is pending; and (2) a reversal on appeal does not necessarily support a malicious prosecution cause of action. (Mills v. Covina)
   
• Mr. Sain and his team secured a win for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department against claims of negligence, excessive force, and wrongful death in an officer-involved shooting case - where a knife-armed teen charged a pair of deputies trying to help him. During the six-day trial, the defense team established that the defendant deputies had reasonably followed their training. The jury ultimately rendered a unanimous defense verdict after three hours of deliberations. (Tucker v. County of Riverside)
   
• Mr. Sain and his team secured the affirmance of summary judgment in favor of the City of Gardena when a California appeals court held that the promulgation provision of Vehicle Code § 17004.7, which provides immunity for public entities that adopt and implement appropriate vehicle pursuit policies, “does not require proof of compliance by every officer with the written certification requirement as a prerequisite to immunity.” The California Supreme Court subsequently adopted this ruling, emphasizing that immunity depends upon agency compliance with the statute, not officer completion of the certification mandate. (Ramirez [Gamar] v. City of Gardena)
   
• Mr. Sain and his team obtained a unanimous defense verdict against a high-profile plaintiff’s attorney in a matter where the plaintiff became paralyzed from the waist down after an encounter with the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department involving a TASER. (Jackson v. County of San Bernardino)
   
• Mr. Sain and his team secured a win for two Manhattan Beach officers in a case alleging excessive force that ended in a mysterious fatality. The decedent incurred a skull fracture of unknown origin during a pursuit following a traffic stop. Plaintiffs’ counsel made a damages demand of eight figures. Following a week-long trial, with jury deliberations split over two days, the jury rendered a complete defense verdict for both officers. (Cardenas v. City of Manhattan Beach)
   
• On behalf of a California government entity, Mr. Sain and his team secured the denial of a petition filed pursuant to the California Public Records Act (CPRA) following the death of a suspect in police custody. Citing to provisions that temporarily exempted from disclosure the police investigatory materials that the plaintiffs sought, the defense team assembled clear and convincing evidence that justified the client’s withholding of records. The court also denied the plaintiffs’ request for attorneys’ fees. (Ngo v. Riverside County Sheriff’s Department)
   
• In a case that may serve as a bellwether in the ongoing debate over the scope of disclosable public records under the 2019+ revisions to the California Public Records Act (CPRA), and the applicable definition of ‘great bodily injury’ (GBI), Mr. Sain and his team secured a denial of a writ petition seeking disclosure of investigative records of a TASER-related incident with standard associated injuries, where death was determined to have been caused by narcotics, not TASER usage. (Howey v. City of Fresno)
   
• Mr. Sain and his team successfully convinced the plaintiff to dismiss her case with prejudice for zero dollars and to assign a full release of claims in a matter involving wrongful death and excessive force claims against police officers regarding an officer-involved shooting of a golf-club-armed suspect. After successfully convincing the court to dismiss the wrongful death claim for lack of standing, the defense team prepared a persuasive motion for summary judgment on the excessive force claim, which ultimately prompted the plaintiff to stipulate to the dismissal of the matter. (Allison v. City of Redondo Beach)
   
• Mr. Sain and his team inspired plaintiffs to dismiss their case with prejudice for zero dollars where plaintiffs’ decedent had run away from a vehicle stop, then grappled against a uniformed deputy, before shooting the deputy twice: prompting the deputy to engage in a self-defensive officer-involved shooting. (Perez-Cortez v. County of Riverside)