Profile

With 26 years of experience as a lawyer, Tom Clifton has a diverse practice currently focused on representing major public entities and insurance companies.  Areas of expertise include complex trials, negotiations, and advice concerning contractual disputes, class actions, regulatory matters including environmental and wage and hour compliance, and reinsurance disputes, some with elements of international practice. 

Skilled in Professional Negligence and Reinsurance Disputes, Public Entity Defense, and Appellate Law

Tom also represents and/or has represented clients in all forms of professional negligence/errors and omissions litigation, including lawyers (his original area of specialty), insurance and reinsurance brokers, real estate agents, and other licensed professionals as well as directors and officers of mid sized private companies, a local public entity, and nonprofits.

Tom handles selected employment and business matters as well. In addition, he has worked extensively on appellate matters at both the District Court and California Supreme Court levels.

Experienced in and Committed to Education

Previously a partner with Lewis, D'Amato, Brisbois and Bisgaard and Vogl and Meredith in San Francisco, Tom joined Archer Norris in 2003.  Prior to earning his J.D., he spent six years serving in senior staff positions at the Berkeley and Santa Cruz campuses of the University of California as well as in the Office of the President.

Tom has served on the Board of Directors of Aurora School in Oakland, California, and has a keen interest, from his days in administration at U.C. Berkeley, in the future quality of California's public and private education systems.

Experience

Tom Clifton’s recent representative matters include:

• State of California on multiple matters involving breach of contract claims, one involving a two week arbitration of a $40 plus million dollar lost profits claim against the taxpayer
• Auto/homeowner's insurance company seeking to commute a unique "finite risk" quota share reinsurance product and a related set of errors and omissions reinsurance broker claims
• Insurance division of a major California maritime port management company seeking to recover sums due from Lloyds of London and the London insurance market on excess worker's compensation claims
• California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in matters before the Regional Water Quality Control Board on specific violation and broader water basin management plan issues
• State of California in a long running injunction involving litigation in a new area of law requiring the development of a regulatory and oversight structure for the implementation of a voter mandate requiring the payment of comparable wage
• Franchise employer in a hostile work environment labor law case
• State of California in a matter involving a multiple million dollar series of private attorneys' general fee claims
• Private company in a taxation matter pending before the State Board of Equalization
• Two lengthy 2008 trials respectively in Los Angeles County and Imperial County Superior Courts
• Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in a contractual dispute with various California cities over joint use/construction agreements for correctional facilities
• State of California in a dispute over the duration of a long term lease of valuable property in the Inland Empire and the State’s right to dispose of the property

News/Publications

Recent News and Articles

Press Releases

01.11.07 Archer Norris Elevates Six Attorneys to Partner