Scott A. Sugarman | Attorney

Scott Sugarman has unusually broad experience as a criminal defense attorney over his 33 years as an attorney.  He is respected and very well regarded not only by the California and federal judges before whom he has appeared, but has the well-earned respect from the prosecutors who have been his opponents in the courtroom.

Scott Sugarman graduated from the University of Rochester in 1972 with a Bachelor of Arts with Highest Distinction in political science and history, and received his law degree from Stanford Law School in 1975.  He is currently a member of the bar of the State of California, District of Columbia, and various federal courts, including United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.

After he graduated from Stanford Law School, he worked an associate in litigation for a large law firm in Washington, D.C.  From 1977 to 1980, Scott served as the Supervising Research Attorney for the Chief Justice of California, Rose Elizabeth Bird.  In that position, he was responsible for researching and drafting opinions for the Chief Justice, and supervising the preparation of opinions and memoranda for the Chief Justice by other law clerks.

He then served for seven years as an Assistant Public Defender in Alameda County.  During that period, he represented defendants charged with all types of crime, from petty theft and driving under the influence of alcohol, to robbery and residential burglary and rape, to capital murder.  With another attorney, he conducted a five-month capital murder trial for a client accused of capital murder in the killing of a police officer.  In addition to the many clients that he personally represented, he supervised and trained younger attorneys working as public defenders, and developed, researched and wrote impact or test case litigation intended to benefit large number of criminal defenders, including the preparation of writs and appeals to the California appellate courts.

In 1989, he created Sugarman & Cannon with his law partner Christopher Cannon.  In the nearly 20 years since Sugarman & Cannon was created, Scott has represented clients charged with nearly every type of crime, including complex white collar crimes, murder, sexual assault and child molestation, tax fraud and evasion and domestic violence.

Scott's representation of clients in the trial court includes:

For more than 20 years, Scott has been actively involved in representing clients in appeals, pre-trial writs, habeas corpus proceedings and other post-conviction proceedings.  His work on behalf of these clients includes:

In addition to his law practice, Scott has been very active in organizations involved with criminal defense and as a seminar speaker on various topics of criminal law and procedure to other attorneys.

Beginning in 1989, he has been a member of the Board of Governors of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice (CACJ), the largest organization of criminal defense attorneys in California.   He was invited by the California Supreme Court to deliver an address to that Court on the occasion of the Court's Memorial to Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird.  He was selected by the Judges of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in 2001 to serve a three-year term as a Lawyer Representative from the District Court to the United States Court of Appeals to the Ninth Circuit.  Since 2003, the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has selected Scott to serve on the Court's Criminal Justice Working Group.  He is currently a member of the Steering Committee of the Lawyer's Council of the ACLU of Northern California.

He has been actively involved in analyzing and reviewing legislation on criminal law topics pending or proposed in the California Legislature throughout his tenure on the Board of CACJ, and prior to that, for the California Public Defender's Association and the Alameda County Public Defender Association.  He has testified before various legislative committees and submitted analysis and criticism of pending bills to legislators, Senate and Assembly committees and their staffs.

For the past 25 years, Scott Sugarman has been asked by numerous bar associations and attorney organizations to speak to attorneys on diverse topics in criminal law and criminal procedure.  Scott has spoken at seminars sponsored by organizations including California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, the California Public Defender Association, the San Francisco Bar Association, the Alameda County Bar Association and the Ventura County Bar Association.