About

Ryan McCarl is a litigator, law professor, 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, 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.

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

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)
Writing Elite Briefs and Motions (CLE presentation to 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
(CLE presentation to 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 (CLE presentation, 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

  • Secured a $17.8 million unanimous federal jury verdict in a breach-of-contract case. Virgin Scent, Inc. v. BT Supplies West, Inc., Case No. 2:21-cv-00184-DMG-AS (C.D. Cal 2022).
  • Obtained a Ninth Circuit reversal of an order granting a motion to dismiss an airline passenger’s claims relating to an in-flight assault. Doe v. Compania Panamena de Aviacion, Case No. No. 21-55983 (9th Cir. 2022).  You can watch John Rushing’s oral argument here.
  • Convinced a Fortune 50 company to drop trademark lawsuits against two Rushing McCarl clients within weeks of taking each case.

Media Coverage

Affiliations

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

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