Eric Pettit is an accomplished litigator with more than two decades of experience successfully representing plaintiffs and defendants in a wide range of business disputes and complex commercial cases. He was a shareholder at the prestigious Los Angeles litigation boutique Caldwell Leslie & Proctor and later spent nearly a decade as a partner at two of the nation’s most respected law firms. In June 2025 Eric realized a lifelong dream when he founded Pettit Stein LLP with his wife — and former Stanford Law School moot court partner — Teri Stein. Eric has first-chaired numerous trials and litigated in courts all over the country, including California, New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, Illinois, Virginia, and Washington. In addition to his extensive experience before state and federal trial and appellate courts, Eric has arbitrated many cases with AAA, JAMS, and FINRA.

Over his career Eric has represented a diverse array of clients, including real estate developers and investors, senior executives, A-list celebrities, music labels, movie studios, and Fortune 500 companies. His broad practice has included complex partnership, contract, and real estate disputes, securities and financial services litigation, regulatory investigations and enforcement actions, intellectual property cases, and environmental and professional negligence suits. In addition to his litigation practice, Eric advises C-suite officers and other senior executives regarding employment and severance agreements with complicated equity components, and formerly served as General Counsel and Director of Operations at Raider Planning & Construction, a real estate development company based in Southern California.

Eric’s law degree was Conferred with Distinction by Stanford Law School in 2003, and he served as a federal law clerk for the late Honorable Reginald Lindsay of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2004. A Massachusetts native who has lived in California for more than twenty-five years, Eric received his bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Boston University, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.

Eric was recognized as a Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2013 and 2014, and named to the Los Angeles Business Journal’s Thriving in Their 40s list in 2021 and 2023. Eric also received a Certificate of Honor in 2005 from former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom “for his important contribution as a member of the team that provided pro bono legal services to the City Attorney’s Office in the City and County of San Franciso’s civil rights litigation over same-sex marriage.” He has been a member in good standing with the California State Bar since 2004 and has also been admitted to practice in the following federal courts: Northern District of California (2005); Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (2006); Central District of California (2008); Southern District of California (2019); Eastern District of New York (2019); Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (2023); and Second Circuit Court of Appeals (2024).

Some of Eric’s representative cases are summarized below:

• Defended national cannabis company and its affiliate against claims for breach of lease agreement and related guaranty for which the plaintiff sought more than $20 million in damages. Following a trial in Los Angeles that Eric handled in 2024 with only a first-year associate, the claims were dismissed in their entirety and with prejudice, and Eric’s clients were awarded their attorneys’ fees and expenses.

• Successfully argued appeal before the California Court of Appeal reversing prior dismissal and reviving claims that Eric’s entrepreneur client had been improperly divested of interests in a healthcare technology company he co-founded.

• Obtained reversal by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit of a summary judgment ruling that refused to recognize contractual rights held by Eric’s clients to sell two apartment complexes in San Jose, California.

• Obtained summary judgment on behalf of investors in an affordable housing property in Illinois and successfully defended that decision before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

• Defended investors against claims including breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty brought by their developer partner in connection with an affordable housing property in New York. Following a federal trial in 2023 that Eric first chaired, the court rejected the claims against Eric’s clients and found that the developer had acted in bad faith and with unclean hands.

• Obtained summary judgment blocking efforts by real estate developers to self- trigger a right of first refusal that would have permitted the developers to purchase a 72-unit apartment complex in Coachella, California for millions of dollars less than its fair market value.

• Defended investment management company against wrongful termination claims brought by a former senior executive. Following an arbitration in Colorado in 2021 that Eric first chaired, the arbitrator found in favor of Eric’s client and dismissed the case with prejudice.

• Defended investors in seven affordable housing properties in Washington against efforts by their developer partners to force the investors to relinquish their property interests for amounts that were tens of millions of dollars below fair market value. Following a trial in 2019 that Eric first chaired, the court rejected the developers’ claims, and instead found that the developers had engaged in bad faith.

• Defended investor against efforts by its developer partner to manipulate an appraisal process in order to reduce the price the developer needed to pay to purchase the investor’s interest. The court ruled on summary judgment that the developer’s actions had caused the appraisal to be “tainted beyond salvation,” and — following a bench trial in 2019 that Eric first - chaired — awarded the investor hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees.

• Defended a hedge fund manager against fraud charges brought by the SEC. Following a five-week SEC administrative trial in New York, the administrative law judge ruled in 2018 that the Commission had failed to meet its burden to prove that client had defrauded his investors, and rejected the Commission’s request to impose a lifetime securities bar and damages in excess of $60 million against the client.

• Defended the former president and chief operating officer of America’s largest home-mortgage lender against governmental investigations and dozens of civil actions arising out of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. The client was never charged with wrongdoing by any federal or state agency, and all the civil lawsuits were either dismissed or settled.

• Obtained summary judgment and dismissal with prejudice of numerous tort, nuisance, and environmental claims brought against a multinational oil company by a condominium owners association and dozens of individual owners. The plaintiffs sought in excess of $35 million in connection with a 110-unit condominium development built in Oakland, California, on a former oil terminal site that the client had sold decades earlier.

• Compelled arbitration and obtained order dismissing claims for breach of contract and the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, defamation, tortious interference, abuse of process, and intentional infliction of emotional distress brought by a registered investment advisor against a prominent national financial services firm. The arbitrator also found that the client was entitled to injunctive and potential monetary relief based on the plaintiff’s knowing violation of a confidentiality agreement.

• Represented investor in FINRA arbitration against securities trading firm for advising the investor that auction rate securities (“ARS”) were a liquid investment immediately before the ARS market collapsed in February 2008. The three arbitrator FINRA panel ordered the trading firm to pay Eric’s client the full purchase price of the frozen ARS he purchased and awarded the client more than 98% of the attorney fees incurred in litigating the case.

• Secured voluntary dismissal of construction defect and unlawful distribution claims brought by condominium owners association against Eric’s client, a developer of luxury homes in Southern California.

• Defended major record label against right of publicity claim filed by an infamous former Los Angeles drug dealer who alleged that the rapper professionally known as “Rick Ross” had adopted his name and persona without permission. The trial court granted summary judgment in Eric’s client’s favor, and the California Court of Appeal affirmed the decision, ruling that the plaintiff’s claims were barred by the First Amendment.

• Drafted and helped negotiate executive employment agreements for the executive chairman and CEO of a leading national home lender and servicer.

• With Bet Tzedek Legal Services, filed a lawsuit against a slumlord on behalf of two families living in uninhabitable conditions in a Los Angeles apartment building. After taking significant discovery, the parties reached a settlement on terms favorable to Eric’s clients, including the payment of relocation costs and other money damages.