Bruce Riordan

Bruce Riordan is an assistant United States attorney and the special counsel to the United States Attorney for the Central District of California. In that capacity, he is the responsible for overseeing the Office’s Public Affairs and Community Outreach efforts, including its efforts in the and Consumer Protection field.

From January 2007 through August 2010, he was the chief of the Gang Division for the City Attorney of Los Angeles where he supervised the implementation and enforcement of the City 43 civil gang injunctions as well the enforcement of all criminal street gang matters in the City Attorney’s Office.

Before starting work with the City of Los Angeles in January 2007, he spent 15 years with the U.S. Department of Justice as an assistant U.S. attorney. At the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he was a deputy chief of the Terrorism and Organized Crime Section of the Office where he directed federal gang prosecutions and lead federal task forces investigating the criminal activities of the 18th Street Gang, the MS-13 Gang, the Rolling 60s Neighborhood Crips Gang, and the Mexican Mafia. In that capacity, he charged and successfully prosecuted the first federal racketeering case against a California street gang. While at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he was cross-designated as a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney to prosecute Rolling 60s Neighborhood Crips gang members for a series of state felonies. As deputy chief of the Terrorism and Organized Crime Section, Riordan worked on and supervised matters of domestic and international terrorism and in 2004, he successfully prosecuted the nation's first federal conviction of a member of the radical domestic organization known as the Earth Liberation Front.

In 2002, Riordan was awarded the “Director’s Award” by the U.S. Department of Justice for the successful prosecution and conviction, after a three month trial, of 26 members and associates of the Mexican Mafia and the 18th Street Gang for assorted federal racketeering violations including murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, extortion, narcotics distribution, money laundering and weapons possession. In 2009, The California Lawyer Magazine named Riordan one of the “California Lawyers of the Year” for his work with the City of Los Angeles to reform the use of civil gang injunctions. He is also a lecturer at the USC Gould School of Law, where he teaches Trial Advocacy.

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

Daily Herald
November 20, 2020
Re: Susan Estrich

Susan Estrich wrote an op-ed criticizing Rudy Guiliani's handling of President Trump's post-election legal efforts. "Rudy was always an attention hog, taking credit for things he had nothing to do with," she wrote. "This time, as he himself has made clear, he has a great deal to do with everything that is slowing down the orderly transition of power, which is the hallmark of a democracy." The op-ed also appeared in The Joplin Globe.

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Jonathan Barnett
September, 2020

Jonathan Barnett participated on a panel discussion on “How to Improve Data Methodology and Communication Around Patent Licensing,” Innovation Alliance Webinar.

Dorothy S. Lund
September, 2020

"Corporate Finance for Social Good," Columbia Law Review (forthcoming 2021). 

Thomas D. Lyon
September, 2020

"Adults' difficulties in identifying concealment among children interviewed with the putative confession instruction,” (with Jennifer Gongola, Jodi A. Quas, and Steven E. Clark) Applied Cognitive Psychology.