Reginald Roberts
USC Gould School of Law

Reginald Roberts, Jr. is a co-managing partner of Sanders Roberts LLP, and his litigation practice focuses on employment matters, general liability defense, premises liability defense, business litigation and defense of serious personal injury and wrongful death cases. He has achieved favorable results for his clients including employment matters in which he served as lead defense counsel for a religious institution in a multi-party employment dispute involving a prominent church and a former pastor who accused the church of misconduct and sued for more than $20 million. He prevailed on an Anti-SLAPP motion effectively ending the case and also recovered attorney fees for his client. He has achieved similar success in wrongful death matters and cases with more than $1 million at issue. Some of the results he obtained received favorable coverage in the media including the Los Angeles Times.

Roberts also counsels public and private entities and provides risk analysis. In 1998, he began his legal career working at a boutique litigation firm, Ivie, McNeill & Wyatt, in downtown Los Angeles where he defended both public and private sector clients in various litigation matters including dangerous condition of public and private property cases, and personal injury cases ranging from trip and fall to wrongful death matters. There, he gained extensive experience litigating matters from start to finish in both state and federal courts. He served as lead counsel in employment law cases, general liability defense matters and in civil rights cases involving high-profile police misconduct issues.

In 2006, Roberts joined Adorno Yoss Alvarado & Smith, a Florida-based law firm with more than 300 attorneys working in offices nationwide. He worked as lead counsel in numerous cases where he provided his clients with vigorous legal representation and consistently achieved favorable results. His litigation experience includes extensive pleadings and motions practice, depositions, case management and budget responsibilities, client contact and presentations to executive boards. He defended municipal and private clients in various tort liability claims, employment matters, in breach of contract actions, business disputes and in insurance coverage disputes. He also represented private financial institutions in real estate litigation and managed wrongful death and personal injury cases involving serious bodily injury. He defended the City of South Gate successfully in a business litigation action seeking over $10 million in damages, and he preserved the victory on appeal.

Roberts has also served in an advisory capacity to public entities on issues including insurance coverage claims, legislative impact on municipal practices and extending municipal powers to address gang violence. He argued successfully insurance coverage issues to an insurance claims board and reduced his client’s coverage costs by $1.5 million.

Roberts has also obtained judgments in favor of his clients in racial discrimination, disability discrimination, sexual harassment and wrongful termination cases.
 

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

Bloomberg Government
June 22, 2022
Re: Franita Tolson

Franita Tolson was interviewed about how federal lawsuits from North Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas test the limits of the Voting Rights Act, the boundaries of state government authority, and the ability of voting rights groups to file racial gerrymandering cases. “These doctrines and approaches in these cases fundamentally reset the rules of the game,” she said. “In 2030 we will live in a completely different world than we lived in in 2020, and 2020 was not favorable to minority voters at all.”

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Robin Craig
March, 2022

"Saltwater Sovereignty: Tribal Marine Management Authority Along the Pacific Coast.” Online Environmental Law Workshop. University of Maryland School of Law, Baltimore, MD.

Daniel Klerman
March, 2022

“Comment on Choi, Erickson, & Pritchard, ‘Coalitions among Plaintiffs’ Attorneys in Securities Class Actions’,” Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, Virtual, Toronto, ON, Canada.

Robin Craig
March, 2022

“Who’s on First? The Mind-Blowing Attempt to Conceptualize Deference in the Midst of Decision Delays and Agency Repeals,” J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Environmental Law Symposium for the George Washington University School of Law, Virtual, Washington, D.C.