Nelson E. (Nick) Brestoff, in 2014, when he retired, had over 38 years of litigation experience. He began his career as prosecutor for the City of Los Angeles, and then went to the private sector, switching to civil litigation in both the federal and state courts in California. He held an AV Preeminent Martindale rating (highest possible peer review rating) for many years.
As an attorney, Nick represented both plaintiffs and defendants. His cases included breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, civil rights, construction, environmental, employment, fraud, insurance coverage, professional liability, real estate entitlement (zoning), trade secret and patent litigation, and fraud and unfair competition.
His notable “first chair” results were for plaintiffs in City Solutions, Inc. v. Clear Channel Communications, 365 F.3d 835 (9th Cir. 2004) (jury trial and appeal; client collected $10.1 million); a shareholder derivative action (confidential; collected $4.4 million); and in Little v. Auto Stiegler, Inc. (2003) 29 Cal.4th 1064 (arbitration trial; client collected $742,000).
Beginning in 2010, Nick began writing articles about eDiscovery issues. His work has been published by the World Jurist Association, the American Bar Association, the Organization of Legal Professionals, and by Law Technology News.
In 2012, Nick wrote the first article about electronic preventive law, “Data Lawyers and Preventive Law” (Law Technology News, October 25, 2012).
Nick’s education includes a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Systems from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and a Master of Science degree in Environmental Engineering Science from the California Institute of Technology. He received his Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Southern California (USC) Gould School of Law.
In 2015, Nick was the lead author of Preventing Litigation: An Early Warning System to Get Big Value Out of Big Data (with W.H. Inmon). Between 2016 and 2018, Nick invented software systems using deep learning and blockchain for which eight patents were issued (in 2017 and 2018) by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
He lives in Sequim, Washington.