Munger, Tolles & Olson Chair Brad Brian Inducted into Lawdragon Hall of Fame Alongside Legal Experts Including a Supreme Court Justice and the Attorney General

Brad D. Brian, a world-renown trial lawyer and chair of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, was inducted into the Lawdragon Hall of Fame class of 2022.  Lawdragon will publish a feature article on Mr. Brian this fall. 

With his induction, Mr. Brian is among a class that includes the nation’s most distinguished legal talent including U. S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, the U. S. Attorney General Merrick Garland as well as litigators, corporate attorneys, and practitioners with an unsurpassed dedication to the legal system.

"Lawdragon’s Hall of Fame includes an impressive group of lawyers and jurists, whom I have admired for many years," said Mr. Brian. “I am humbled and honored that Lawdragon selected me to be among this prestigious group.”

As one of the nation’s foremost trial lawyers, Mr. Brian’s impressive legal career includes a stint as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California. He joined Munger Tolles in 1981 and since then he has mentored more junior lawyers while maintaining an unwavering focus on client service. 

Mr. Brian is among an elite group of trial lawyers who are known for representing companies in their most challenging,  high-stakes criminal or civil lawsuits. He leads clients through difficult crises and his work continues to shape industries and steer conversations around some of the most pressing issues of the day. 

Mr. Brian began the 2011-2020 decade by representing Transocean, the offshore drilling giant, in the criminal and civil litigation in New Orleans arising out of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest oil spill in history. Mr. Brian’s success for Transocean garnered him recognition by The American Lawyer as a lawyer of the year.

Since then, Mr. Brian represented MGM Resorts in defending litigation by more than 4,000 victims of the March 2017 terrorist shooting at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.  Mr. Brian currently serves as lead counsel for PG&E in criminal and civil litigation arising from the wildfires that devastated Northern California in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

In addition to these crisis cases, Mr. Brian has tried many cases throughout the country, securing victories in a wide variety of cases, including environmental disasters, copyright disputes, alleged trade secret theft, savings and loan fraud, contract disputes, legal malpractice, and malicious prosecution.

Mr. Brian is a “lawyer’s lawyer”, having represented many of the nation’s largest law firms in more than 150 legal malpractice and malicious prosecution cases.

Mr. Brian is also the co-editor of the critically acclaimed Internal Corporate Investigations (ABA 2017).

“Serving clients is a privilege and I take that responsibility very seriously,” Mr. Brian said. “My goal is to go beyond the role of a legal advisor to being a true partner who is fully vested in my clients’ business needs. I am grateful for all of the opportunities I have had to partner with such great clients and with such great colleagues at Munger, Tolles & Olson.

For more than 23 years Mr. Brian has been named by the Daily Journal as one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in California. In January 2021, the Daily Journal named Mr. Brian as one of the top 18 lawyers of the 2011-20 decade.

For more on Mr. Brian and the Lawdragon Hall of Fame class of 2022, click here.