Richard B. Specter
Richard B. Specter, born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 6, 1952; admitted to bar, 1977, Missouri; 1978, Illinois; 1978, Pennsylvania; 1984, California. Preparatory education, Washington University (B.A., cum laude, 1974); legal education, George Washington University (J.D., 1977). Member: Orange County Bar Association; American Bar Association (Member: Litigation Section; Committee on Entertainment and Sports Industries); Pennsylvania Bar Association; Illinois State Bar Association; Missouri Bar Association.
Mr. Specter has over thirty years of litigation experience, including complex matters with the amounts in controversy extending into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite primarily acting as defense counsel, he has obtained Judgments and Settlements in excess of $100 million in the last three years. He was named a 2009 Southern California Super Lawyer, and has been selected for inclusion in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in American Law.
Mr. Specter has extensive experience before both Federal and State courts across the country, and has been a featured guest on the Today show, as well as appearances on Extra and the Discovery Channel. He has acted as lead counsel in major litigation involving the entertainment industry, shareholder derivative actions, franchise disputes, distribution rights, unfair competition, constitutional and trademark issues, and presently handles cases in areas as wide-reaching as lender liability, employment, biotechnology, music and insurance bad faith. He has also been involved in antitrust matters affecting the petroleum, sports, health care and newspaper industries, as well as Federal and State securities claims, intellectual property matters and commercial transactions. Mr. Specter's trial experience includes products liability cases, business disputes, real estate matters, professional malpractice and banking litigation, as well as the successful defense of antitrust litigation involving the managed health care industry.
In 2008, Mr. Specter obtained a $36 million Judgment in Federal Court in a Bad Faith case arising from patent litigation that Mr. Specter had previously defended, wherein the insurer had denied any liability. In another six month Federal Court trial which concluded in 2004, Mr. Specter obtained a $45 million Judgment against multiple parties, and a finding of alter ego liability. He was brought in to defend a complex real estate fraud case, after a $15 million judgment had been rendered. The matter was reversed on appeal, and at the retrial, Mr. Specter limited the damages to less than a million dollars, which was affirmed on appeal. Although primarily defense counsel, Mr. Specter obtained a jury trial verdict in favor of his client for $4 million, where his client had originally been sued in the matter, and has secured multiple seven figure verdicts. In another trial, he successfully defended an insurance carrier in a claim involving bad faith allegations. He recently prevailed in a case involving establishment and reclamation of the rights to the original music of Frank Sinatra, and successfully prosecuted an action against Boyz II Men for its failure to fulfill contractual obligations. Mr. Specter secured a defense verdict in a six week lender liability trial in Federal Court on behalf of a multinational conglomerate, and prevailed in a three week State Court trial involving a land dispute at the Santa Anita race track.
Mr. Specter has also argued numerous appellate matters before both State and Federal Courts of Appeal, most recently before the California Supreme Court in the highly publicized Sinatra “Son of Sam” case. He has testified as an expert witness in legal malpractice actions, and is a qualified lecturer for Continuing Legal Education courses.
