Mr. Declues is a founding partner of the firm. He received his B.A. in 1972 and his J.D. in 1975, both from the University of Southern California. He was admitted to the California Bar, the U.S. District Courts and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal that year. Mr. Declues worked from 1975 to 1982 with the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, initially in the Criminal Division as a prosecutor and then in the Tort Litigation Section of the Department of Water and Power.

In 1982, he joined a major civil defense firm in Los Angeles where he became a partner in 1984 and opened its Orange County Office in 1985. Under his leadership as managing partner and senior trial counsel, the office grew from two to twenty-two attorneys in seven years, encompassing civil litigation and worker’s compensation.

Mr. Declues gained extensive experience in handling primarily complex and potentially large exposure cases, including catastrophic injury, wrongful death, civil rights, sexual molestation, sexual harassment, products liability and construction site accidents. He has tried over seventy-five cases. He is a charter member of the Warren H. Ferguson Inn of Court which is associated with Chapman University School of Law and which emphasizes legal ethics.

In 1996, Mr. Declues and Mr. Burkett established the Orange County Office of the firm.