Scott Malzahn
USC Gould School of Law

Scott Malzahn is a partner at Baker Marquart, where his practice focuses on general business litigation and intellectual property disputes. He has successfully represented Fortune 100 companies and individual clients at all stages of litigation in a range of matters, including constitutional cases and contract litigation. He has served as lead trial counsel and argued motions in both federal and state courts in California, as well as in other jurisdictions. Malzahn has consistently been named a “Rising Star” by Los Angeles magazine from 2012 through 2016.

Malzahn has handled many high-profile cases. He was a member of the trial team in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which won a historic federal court decision striking down California’s ban on same-sex marriage as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He also has handled many appeals in the federal court and has represented third parties in amicus briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court. He also won political asylum for a young Iraqi boy and his family after CNN covered the story of a terrorist attack on the boy in dozens of news articles and on television. He is a board member of Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization.

Malzahn graduated from UC Hastings in the top 1% of his class, where he won an intercollegiate moot court competition and received a prestigious scholarship from law school faculty. He graduated summa cum laude from The College of William and Mary with a BS degree. He was selected by his college faculty to join Phi Beta Kappa, and worked during college as a Ropes Course Instructor. He enjoys playing beach volleyball.
 

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

Joplin Globe
September 20, 2021
Re: Susan Estrich

Susan Estrich was interviewed about the ongoing COVID-19 vaccine debate. "Why would anyone want the 'right' to have mumps or chickenpox? Or German measles? These were things to be avoided." she wrote. "Why would anyone want the 'right' to have COVID-19?"

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Thomas D. Lyon
July, 2021

“Use of global trait cues helps to explain older adults’ decrements in detecting children’s lies” (with Alison O’Connor, Micaela Wiens, & Angela D. Evans) (in press), Legal and Criminological Psychology.

Thomas D. Lyon
July, 2021

“Causal indicators for assessing the truthfulness of child speech in forensic interviews” (with Zane Durante, Victor Ardulov, Manoj Kumar, Jennifer Gongola, & Shrikanth Narayanan) (in press), Computer Speech & Language.

Thomas D. Lyon
July, 2021

“The difficulty of teaching adults to recognize referential ambiguity in children's testimony: The influence of explicit instruction and sample questions” (with Breanne Wylie, Jennifer Gongola, & Angela D. Evans) (in press), Applied Cognitive Psychology.