James R. Lance is an experienced trial attorney who has represented both plaintiffs and defendants for 38 years. He regularly represents defendants in bet-the-company litigation, and has obtained several 7 and 8 figure verdicts, judgments, and settlements for personal injury and commercial plaintiffs.
Lance obtained a judgment of $12,933,000 in 2024 for an individual plaintiff asserting an employment claim. In addition to commercial matters, Lance routinely represents individuals asserting serious personal injury and wrongful death claims.
Representing clients in many different types of disputes, Lance has tried cases involving investor fraud, antitrust, unfair business practices, legal malpractice, serious personal injury, maritime injury and other maritime disputes, product liability, medical malpractice, wrongful death, and a class action investor fraud case on behalf of the San Diego County employees regarding their retirement benefits.
Lance has been continuously selected by his peers as a “Top 50” attorney in San Diego since 2019 and has been a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) since 2013. He served on the ABOTA membership committee for several years and, in 2024, he became the president of San Diego ABOTA. Lance is a member of the board of directors for CAL-ABOTA, which serves eight California ABOTA chapters and the Hawaii chapter. He also is a board member of the William B. Enright Chapter of the American Inns of Court.
Lance is very active in the community. He coached youth football and baseball for more than 15 years, and presently spearheads a program at an underserved high school in Southeast San Diego, which holds monthly meetings on campus to provide students with information and mentoring for career opportunities in the legal field, potential internships, and oral argument competitions.
