Matthew Butler

Partner

Matthew B. Butler is a founding partner of Nicholas & Butler LLP with significant experience in civil litigation.  Mr. Butler focuses on complex litigation such as consumer class actions, employment class actions, insurance bad faith, business and construction litigation.  He litigates select individual wrongful termination and personal injury matters.  Mr. Butler’s experience includes positive results prosecuting and defending several cases through jury trial, bench trial and arbitration.  Martindale-Hubbell© rated Mr. Butler an AV© Preeminent™ lawyer in 2009.  He has given seminars on how to depose expert witnesses, expert witness law in California, trial techniques and civil litigation for young lawyers. 

Representative cases handled by Mr. Butler include:

1. Cohen v. Robert Bosch Tool where Mr. Butler and his partner successfully obtained a $5.0 million class action settlement for claims related to saws that were mislabeled as “Made in the USA”;
2. Loera v. Akal Security, an employment wage and hour case where Mr. Butler certified a class of approximately 350 guards who did not receive appropriate overtime, breaks, or meal periods in accordance with California law;
3. Vien Dong v. AMCO Insurance Company, The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company, and Alliant Insurance Services, Inc., an insurance bad faith case where Mr. Butler represented a food market that was denied certain insurance coverage for a fire loss under its Premier Business Owners Policy – including the business income coverage and extra expense coverage.  The food market also sued its broker for recommending insufficient insurance coverage.  Mr. Butler obtained a settlement in excess of $1.5 million;
4. J.C.M. Iavelli Plastering, Inc. v. State Compensation Insurance Fund and Vanorsdale Insurance Services where Mr. Butler represented a construction contractor in an insurance bad faith case where SCIF refused to defend or indemnify the contractor against a claim for injuries by a worker.  Mr. Butler obtained a settlement in excess of $700,000, which exceeded the amount that J.C.M. paid to resolve the claim by the worker;
5. Giametta v. Bakbone Software, Inc., an individual wrongful termination and breach of contract case in which Mr. Butler successfully arbitrated the breach of contract case over the failure of the company to pay full sales commissions to a Senior Vice President for North America at the time of termination.  Mr. Butler obtained and collected in excess of $250,000 including arbitration costs and attorneys fees when the highest offer for settlement pre-arbitration was $58,000.
6. Burks v. TSC Restoration; Burks v. Hernandez, two cases related to the same remodel of an individual home in the Bay Park neighborhood of San Diego.   Mr. Butler successfully resolved the two cases for a combined value of more than $1.0 million.  The allegations included breach of contract, negligence, and fraud.

SuperLawyers magazine selected Mr. Butler as one of the top attorneys in California for 2009 and 2010.  Only five percent of the lawyers in the state are named by SuperLawyers.  The magazine can be found online at www.superlawyers.com, where lawyers can be searched by practice area and location. 

Mr. Butler received his Juris Doctor in 1998 from the University Of San Diego School Of Law. He completed his undergraduate education at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where he graduated with a BA in 1995. Mr. Butler is admitted to practice before all California state courts and the United States District Courts in the Southern District of California. He is a member of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Mr. Butler is a leader in the legal profession.  Mr. Butler is currently a Barrister with the Louis M. Welsh American Inn of Court.  He was elected to the State Bar of California Board of Governors by the California Young Lawyers Association (“CYLA”) for the bar year 2006-2007.  His service was recognized, as the CYLA reelected him for the 2007-2008 bar year.  He also served as the District 9 representative to the CYLA Board of Directors from 2003-2006, representing San Diego and Imperial counties. From 2003-2008, Mr. Butler held other leadership positions within the California Young Lawyers Association, such as First Vice President and Treasurer. He is also member of the San Diego County Bar Association.
 
Mr. Butler also held leadership positions on a national level with the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division.  He began as a member of the Division’s Council, as a District Representative for Southern California from 2005-2007.  Mr. Butler has been a director with the division since 2007, as a Committee Director and Administrative Director.  His service with the division is ongoing.
 
Mr. Butler values community service as well.  Mr. Butler served as a Big Brother with the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of San Diego.  Mr. Butler also coordinated the Young Lawyers for Youth program in San Diego in conjunction with The State Bar of California and the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program.           

AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rated
AV® Preeminent™ and BV® Distinguished™ are certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies.