Jesse Max Creed

Jesse Creed is an attorney with Panish | Shea | Boyle | Ravipudi LLP and focuses his practice on complex and catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, sexual abuse, and product liability cases.

Mr. Creed was instrumental in securing a settlement of up to $1.8 billion for thousands of plaintiffs in the Southern California Gas Leak Cases brought against Southern California Gas Company and Sempra Energy as a result of a 2015 gas well blowout in Porter Ranch, California. Due to his tenacity and persistence, Mr. Creed obtained a court order ordering the defendants in that action to produce hundreds of thousands of withheld documents, finding the oil and gas defendants’ violation of multiple court orders was willful and in bad faith. His efforts resulted in an order requiring defendants to reopen over a hundred depositions at their cost and expense, resulting in approximately $6 million in sanctions against defendants and their counsel.

Mr. Creed was also instrumental in securing a $380 million settlement for hundreds of survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of disgraced doctor, Lawrence Nassar. The lawsuits were brought against USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. When USAG filed bankruptcy, Mr. Creed was the only attorney who fought on behalf of his clients to lift the automatic stay of litigation against the Olympic Committee in an effort to proceed to trial for his clients.

Mr. Creed also represented a class of students with disabilities in a discrimination class action lawsuit against ACT, Inc., the administrator of the standardized college entrance exam. As a result of this representation, he secured on behalf of a nationwide class a consent decree preventing ACT from engaging in the alleged discriminatory practices, as well as a $16 million settlement for a California subclass of examinees. The case was featured on national media outlets.

Currently, Mr. Creed represents Matthew Hutchins and his son in a lawsuit brought against Alec Baldwin and the Rust Production Company for the fatal shooting of his wife, Halyna Hutchins — a cinematographer shot and killed by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Rust film production.

Mr. Creed has received numerous awards for his work including two recognitions as California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) award, the first recognition for his work on the Southern California Gas Leak Cases, and a second recognition for his work securing massive governmental reforms for a class of homeless veterans against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He has also been twice recognized by the Consumer Attorneys of California as a Consumer Attorney of the Year finalist, again for his work on the Southern California Gas Leak Cases as well as for his work on the ACT class action.

Additionally, Mr. Creed has consistently been recognized as a Super Lawyer Rising Star since 2018 and has been listed in Best Lawyers since 2021.

Some of Mr. Creed’s results include:

Southern California Gas Leak Cases – served as a lead lawyer in securing up to a $1,800,000,000 settlement for tens of thousands of families devastated by an oil and gas well blowout that spewed over 108,000 tons of toxic chemicals.

Dr. Lawrence Nassar Sex Abuse Cases – served as a lead lawyer in securing a $400 million global settlement from USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee for survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of Dr. Lawrence Nassar.

Doe v. National Trucking Company – secured a $17.5 million settlement against a national trucking company for wrongful death.

Webb v. the United States – secured a $6 million settlement in Federal Tort Claim Act case against Department of Homeland Security, one the highest settlements against that agency.

Mr. Creed has fearlessly advocated for legal and policy changes on behalf of his clients and is considered an expert on military veteran policy and administration, pushing for policy and legal reforms in the courts, the Congress, the Executive Branch, and in the court of public opinion.

Prior to joining the firm, he fought passionately on behalf of homeless and disabled military veterans in a decades-long, high-profile battle with the VA over the use of the 388-acre campus in West Los Angeles. Mr. Creed led Vets Advocacy, a legal and policy advocacy nonprofit, formed out of the landmark Valentini v. Shinseki class action litigation where he represented a class of homeless and disabled veterans that led to a commitment from the VA to build at least 1,200 homes for homeless veterans at the West LA VA campus, Congressional legislation for his clients (the “West Los Angeles Leasing Act of 2016”), and an unprecedented public-private partnership involving the federal government, the City and County of Los Angeles, and attorneys for the Valentini plaintiffs. This litigation also led to a wholesale uprooting of corruption at the VA, resulting in the criminal conviction of a high-level VA official for bribery, a wide-ranging VA Inspector General report, and the indictment of an individual stealing millions from veterans. For his work, he was awarded the prestigious California Lawyer’s Attorneys of the Year Award and is recognized as one of the few lawyers with extensive experience running public opinion campaigns for systems change through the use of the media and community organizing.

In addition to handling aspects of the Valentini litigation with his previous firm, Munger, Tolles & Olson, LLP, Mr. Creed represented a whistleblower in a multi-billion-dollar securities investigation by the Department of Justice and the Securities & Exchange Commission and Emeco, Inc. in a trade dress infringement suit against Restoration Hardware, among other matters.

He had the honor of serving as a law clerk to Judge William Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and to Judge Diana Motz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

After graduating from Princeton University summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, Mr. Creed graduated law school from Columbia Law School in New York City, where he was a James Kent scholar all three years (top 1-3% of his class) and earned prizes for achieving the highest marks in constitutional law and property. He taught constitutional law to first-year students, served on the Columbia Law Review, and was a research assistant to former Commissioner of the Securities & Exchange Commission, Harvey Goldschmid.