Jesse Creed

Jesse Creed is a partner and trial attorney with Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP and focuses his practice on high-stakes matters, including complex and catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, sexual abuse, and product liability cases. Licensed in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii, he currently serves in a leadership role as Individual Plaintiffs Co-Liaison Counsel in the Maui Fires litigation and as Liaison Counsel in the Social Media Addiction Cases.

A three-time recipient of the distinguished California Lawyer Attorney of the Year award, Mr. Creed is recognized among the 2025 Top 100 Lawyers in California by the Daily Journal and has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America since 2022. He is also named among the Lawdragon 500 list of Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers and to the list of Southern California Super Lawyers since 2025. Prior to those recognitions, Mr. Creed has been listed previously among the Super Lawyers Up-and-Coming 100 and on the list Rising Stars since 2019.

Some highlights of Mr. Creed’s groundbreaking work for plaintiffs are highlighted below:

• In re Maui Fires Litigation: Mr. Creed was instrumental in developing one of the most creative and innovative mass tort settlements. In order to fulfill a condition to the $4.8 billion global settlement, Mr. Creed was the lead lawyer to argue before the Hawaii Supreme Court that the plaintiffs had a right to settle their claims without interference from the Subrogating Insurers. See In re Maui Fire Cases, 565 P.3d 754 (Haw. 2025). This ruling is believed to reduce the Subrogating Insurers’ claims by a fraction of the $3 billion they claimed, giving more money to the victims. The groundbreaking holding was covered by national news media and praised by Hawaii Governor Josh Green, and Mr. Creed was frequently quoted for the plaintiffs. Mr. Creed was also the lead lawyer to successfully argue the Plaintiffs’ motion to remand under the Multiparty, Multiforum Trial Jurisdiction Act of 2002, sending the case back to Maui state courts and paving the way for the settlement under supervision of the Hawaii State courts. See Sheikhan v. Hawaiian Elec. Indus., Inc., 2024 WL 4458133, Case No. 23-00460-JAO-BMK (D. Haw. Mar. 11, 2024).
• Mike–Price, et al. v. Midea: Mr. Creed was co-lead trial counsel in a high-stakes product liability case against global multi-billion consumer product manufacturer Midea Group.  Plaintiff was a six-year old boy who swallowed a button battery from a defective remote control. Mr. Creed aggressively went after the Chinese defendants for hiding documents and violating court orders, resulting in $590,000 in sanctions, issue and evidentiary sanctions, and, ultimately, in trial when it became apparent further discovery violations had occurred, terminating sanctions. The case settled for a confidential amount during trial.
• In re Southern California Gas Leak 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.
• Garcia v. Newport-Mesa Unified School District: Mr. Creed recently obtained a$31 million settlement for a former high school football player who suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of a negligently maintained field by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. As a result of his work on this case, Mr. Creed received the 2025 California Lawyer Attorney of the Year Award from the Daily Journal.
• Senk, et al. v. City of Newport Beach: Mr. Creed obtained a $23 million settlement against the City of Newport Beach for the two-time catastrophic flooding of a Corona del Mar home. It is believed to be one of the largest property-damage-only settlements involving a residential home against a government entity. The claims involved permanent nuisance and inverse condemnation theories of liability.
• Nassar Sex Abuse Cases: 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.
• ACT Disability Discrimination Class Action: Mr. Creed 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.
• Halyna Hutchins Wrongful Death Lawsuit: Mr. Creed and founding partner Brian Panish represent 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.

Additional results obtained by Mr. Creed include:

• An approximate $65 million award against a public utility for its negligence following a modified-arbitration style proceeding where each side presented voluminous evidence and expert reports;
• A settlement over $19 million for an employee following 17 days of arbitration in which the arbitrator found fraud and punitive damages against the former employer. Mr. Creed was lead counsel in the arbitration;
• A $3 million settlement against a National Governing Body of an Olympic sport arising out of a minor’s sexual abuse by her coach;
• Represented a group of sexual assault survivors against the University of Southern California for being sexually assaulted by the school gynecologist, with the case settling for multi-millions of dollars;
• A $17.5 million settlement against a national trucking company for wrongful death;
• A $6 million settlement in Federal Tort Claim Act case against Department of Homeland Security, one the highest settlements against that agency.

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.

Following law school, Mr. Creed 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. Mr. Creed used to work at Munger, Tolles & Olson, LLP before deciding to represent the “little guy.”