About

Ryan McCarl is an experienced litigator and former federal appellate clerk whose expertise in legal writing and strategy helps Rushing McCarl provide elite representation to clients at trial and on appeal. Mr. McCarl authored Elegant Legal Writing (Univ. Cal. Press 2024) (book | blog), a pathbreaking book on written advocacy. He prides himself on outmaneuvering opponents through aggressive motion practice, creating favorable battlegrounds at every stage of litigation.

Along with representing clients in complex business disputes and transactional matters, Mr. McCarl regularly gives seminars to law firms, government agencies, and bar associations — including the ABA Litigation Section, Texas Office of the Attorney General, and Los Angeles Office of the City Attorney — about how to craft compelling arguments. He was recently invited to be the keynote speaker at the Minnesota State Bar Association Appellate Practice Section’s annual conference.

Mr. McCarl previously served as an AI Law and Policy research fellow at the UCLA School of Law, where he designed and taught a popular course on Advanced Legal Writing. He has also taught legal drafting at LMU Loyola Law School.

Before joining the UCLA Law faculty and co-founding Rushing McCarl LLP, Mr. McCarl clerked for the Honorable David M. Ebel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, worked as a litigator at WilmerHale and Hueston Hennigan, and founded an educational technology startup. He has published articles and book chapters on many topics, including artificial intelligence and law, substantive due process, claim preclusion, constitutional vagueness doctrine, sovereign debt arbitration, and property rights. His articles have appeared in outlets including the Stanford Journal of International Law and Cincinnati Law Review.

In 2022, Mr. McCarl helped Rushing McCarl LLP secure a $17.8 million federal jury verdict for a cosmetics manufacturer and win an against-the-odds Ninth Circuit reversal against a major airline. In 2024, Mr. McCarl helped the firm secure jury verdicts of $3.3 million and $9.9 million in contract and partnership disputes.

Mr. McCarl earned his J.D. with Honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was a Chicago Journal of International Law member. He also earned an M.A. in International Relations and a B.A. in Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he was a track team captain and broke the school record in cross country. He also earned an M.A. in Education at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and taught high school history and geography.

You can review examples of Rushing McCarl’s public work here.

Education

J.D. with Honors, The University of Chicago Law School
M.A., Education, The University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
M.A., International Relations, The University of Chicago
B.A., Political Science, The University of Chicago

Selected Publications and Presentations

Elegant Legal Writing (Univ. Cal. Press 2024) (book | blog)
Elegant Legal Writing — How to Craft Clear and Compelling Legal Briefs (Keynote address to the Minnesota State Bar 2025 Appellate Practice Institute) (2025)
Writing Briefs Judges Want to Read (Seminar for the Los Angeles Office of the City Attorney) (2025)
Writing Elite Briefs and Motions (Seminar for the State of Texas Office of the Attorney General) (2022)
The Limits of Law and AI, 90 U. Cin. L. Rev. (2022)
Legal Writing Fundamentals (Seminar for the State of Texas Office of the Attorney General and Clear Law Institute) (2021)
Business Property Insurance May Cover COVID-19 Related Losses, Daily Journal (2020) (with John Rushing)
Claim Preclusion Across Jurisdictions: Navigating the Labyrinth, Daily Journal (2019)
AI 101 for Lawyers (Seminar for Clear Law Institute) (2019)
ICSID Jurisdiction Over International Mass Investment Arbitrations: Due Process and Default Rules, 51 Stan. J. Int’l L. 173 (2015)
When Homeowners Associations Go Too Far: Political Responses to Unpopular Rules in Common Interest Communities, 43 Real Estate L.J. 453 (2015)
Incoherent and Indefensible: An Interdisciplinary Critique of the Supreme Court’s Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine, 42 Hastings Const. L.Q. 73 (2014)
Creditors’ remedies, in Rosa M. Lastra and Lee Buchheit, eds., Sovereign Debt Management (with Mark Weidemaier) (Oxford Univ. Press 2014)

Notable Results

Representing plaintiffs:

  • Won a $17.8 million jury verdict in a breach-of-contract case involving a major cosmetics manufacturer (Virgin Scent, Inc. v. BT Supplies West, Inc.).
  • Won a $9.9 million jury verdict in a partnership dispute involving the largest cannabis business in Kern County (Delis v. Thorn).*
  • Won a $3.3 million jury verdict in a dispute involving a breach of a medical practice sale contract and nonsolicitation agreement (Leyster v. Tran).
  • Won a California Labor Commissioner judgment exceeding $468,000 for an iHeartRadio DJ in a fraud case involving the Talent Agencies Act.
  • Won a default judgment exceeding $500,000 in a cryptocurrency fraud case; the case was covered in Forbes, leading to an FBI investigation and indictment (Chavez v. Jordan-Jones).
  • Won a Ninth Circuit reversal for a victim of an in-flight assault (Doe v. Compania Panamena de Aviacion).
  • Named co-lead plaintiffs’ counsel in putative deceptive-advertising class action based on a manufacturer’s failure to disclose its use of lead in Stanley Tumbler drinkware (In re Stanley Tumbler Litigation).
  • Won a favorable pretrial settlement of a malpractice and conversion case against an AmLaw 100 law firm (DSS Risk Consultants v. ArentFox).
  • Represented the family estate of musician Leonard Cohen in malpractice litigation against his former law firm (Seibert v. Ervin, Cohen & Jessup LLP).

Representing defendants:

  • Won a total victory (settlement with the plaintiff paying our client) for an employee who was sued by their former employer in a trade-secrets case (T2 Modus, LLC v. Williams).
  • Won a total victory (settlement paying the plaintiff nothing) for a shipping company that was sued by a bank for millions in a secured-transactions case.**
  • Won a jury verdict on four of five claims as trial counsel in a securities fraud case, defeating RICO allegations seeking eight-figure damages and leading to a post-trial settlement (Altaa v. Production Capital).
  • Favorably resolved trademark claims brought by Patagonia against Rushing McCarl clients within weeks of taking each case, resolving one matter for $0 and the other for a nominal sum ($1,860) (Patagonia v. Kranz).

Other:

  • Wrote an amicus brief signed by 1,700 University of Michigan alumni, garnering national news coverage  (Harbaugh v. Big Ten Conf).
  • Wrote an amicus brief for ClientEarth and The Shareholder Commons in securities-regulation case, with the Fifth Circuit citing the brief in its ruling (Nat’l Ctr. for Pub. Pol’y Res. v. SEC).
  • Wrote an amicus brief for 14 signatories in a case about state land-surveying regulations (Crownholm v. Moore).
  • Wrote a pioneering amicus brief on workplace caste discrimination, leading to invitations to present to the Department of Justice and other federal agencies (California DFEH v. Cisco Systems, Inc.).

* After damages for civil-theft are automatically trebled under Cal. Pen. Code § 496(c).

** Agreement has been reached but written terms are still being finalized.

Licenses

California
District of Columbia (inactive)
United States Supreme Court
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
United States District Court for the Central District of California
United States District Court for the Eastern District
of Texas
United States District Court for the Western District of Washington

Affiliations

American Bar Association
American Civil Liberties Union
Los Angeles County Bar Association
LGBTQ+ Lawyers Association of Los Angeles

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