Ian Fusselman

 Ian Fusselman spent the first 20 years of his career as a litigator in state and federal court and is now a full-time mediator with ADR Services.

Fusselman began his career as a civil defense attorney, working for six years at the law firms of Belcher, Henzie & Biegenzahn, and Murchison & Cumming. He then joined the San Diego plaintiff’s law firm of Thorsnes Bartolotta McGuire in 2004 and was elevated to partner in 2012. His work over his entire career focused on catastrophic personal injury cases, aviation crashes, insurance bad faith litigation, construction litigation, landslide and flood litigation, employment law, real estate litigation, mass torts and other complex litigation.

As a defense attorney, his clients included Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Robinsons May, Cessna Aircraft Company and Progressive Insurance. Notably, he represented the target defendant in the litigation arising from the folk singer John Denver’s fatal plane crash. As a plaintiff’s attorney, he helped to recover more than $185 million in verdicts and settlements on behalf of his clients.

Fusselman has received several recognitions, including as a “San Diego Top Attorney” by the San Diego Daily Transcript in 2013, “Best of the Bar” by the San Diego Business Journal in 2014 and as a “Super Lawyer” by Thomson Reuters, 2014-2019. In 2016, he was listed in Top Verdict as having one of the top 50 personal injury settlements in California.

He has written extensively on issues relating to California evidence law and has a particular interest in the ongoing debate over changes to the mediation privilege.

Fusselman began serving as a mediator in 2014 and is a member of the San Diego County Superior Court Civil Mediation Panel and the Department of Fair Employment and Housing Volunteer Mediator Panel. He is a graduate of the USC Gould School of Law, earning his JD in 1998.  

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

San Francisco Chronicle
April 14, 2021
Re: Jean Lantz Reisz

Jean Reisz was interviewed about the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco's rejection of an earlier U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals decision that denied asylum to Salvadoran sisters who were harassed by a gang. “Their journey to asylum has been difficult and longer than it should have been,” she said. The judge and the board “ignored the evidence and denied lifesaving relief to the twins based on unlawful conclusions” that the court has now overturned. The article also appeared in Microsoft News.

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Michael Simkovic
February, 2021

"Income Taxes and Work Hours," University of Virginia Law and Economics Workshop, University of Virginia Law School, Charlottesville, VA.

Dorothy S. Lund
February, 2021

“The Corporate Governance Machine” (with Elizabeth Pollman), 122 Columbia Law Review (forthcoming 2022)

Michael Simkovic
February, 2021

“Income Taxes & Work Hours,” Florida Tax Review.