Bullard, Kent J.

Current Employment Position(s)

Associate, since 2006

Lawyer Overview

Already a seasoned criminal appellate lawyer and civil litigator, Kent joined GMSR in 2006 eager to dedicate himself to civil appellate practice.  He has since successfully briefed and argued multiple appeals in the California Courts of Appeal and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on a wide array of subjects—from complex business cases to civil rights actions.  Recently, Kent teamed up with the firm’s original Kent—colleague Kent Richland—to obtain a unanimous reversal from the Supreme Court of the United States in City of Ontario v. Quon (2010) 130 S. Ct. 2619, the first case in more than two decades in which the Court had considered how the Fourth Amendment applies in a government workplace.  He was chosen by The Recorder as one of its 2010 Attorneys of the Year. 

Before joining GMSR, Kent first honed his legal research and writing skills as a federal judicial clerk in Nevada, and then served more than four years as a Deputy Attorney General—successfully briefing and arguing criminal cases in the California Supreme Court and Courts of Appeal and in the Ninth Circuit.  From there, he went to Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, where, over the course of five years, he litigated complex civil cases and also worked to develop an expertise in civil appeals, briefing a variety of cases in state and federal appellate courts, including authoring a successful motion to dismiss a high stakes divorce appeal.

Kent formed a solid foundation for appellate work at UCLA School of Law, where he learned appellate advocacy from a former California Supreme Court justice and worked for a professor as a researcher and editor on portions of the Restatement of Property. He also drafted several Ninth Circuit briefs as a summer law clerk for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Las Vegas. He capped off his law school experience by being selected as one of two student speakers at commencement (delivering a speech comparing the experiences of attending law school and junior high school).

Not only has he appeared many times before appellate judges, but Kent also has performed the role of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in “The Trial of Oliver Wendell Holmes,” a play presented as part of UCLA School of Law’s Nimmer Memorial Lecture series, and he has served as a judge in UCLA’s Moot Court Honors Program. He is also a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Appellate Courts Section. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his wife and two children and hiking and mountain biking in the Verdugo Mountains near his home in Glendale.

Areas of Practice

• Appellate Law
• Business Litigation
• Constitutional Law
• Employment and Agency Law
• Tort Litigation

Representative Cases

• City of Ontario v. Quon, 177 L.Ed.2d 216 (United States Supreme Court 2010)
• Lockton v. O’Rourke , 184 Cal.App.4th 1051 (California Court of Appeal 2010)
• Robertson v. County of Ventura , 275 Fed.Appx. 594, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 9071 (United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 2008)
• Nuanes v. Insignia Financial Group Inc. , 2008 Cal.App. Unpub. LEXIS 1370 (California Court of Appeal 2008)
• Marasco v. Superior Court (Ring) , 2008 Cal.App. Unpub. LEXIS 712 (California Court of Appeal 2008)
• Maughan v. Google Technology, Inc., 143 Cal.App.4th 1242 (California Court of Appeal 2006)
• People v. Smith, 24 Cal.4th 849 (California Supreme Court 2001)
• People v. Morante, 20 Cal.4th 403 (California Supreme Court 1999)
• People v. Robinson, 63 Cal.App.4th 348 (California Court of Appeal 1998)

West Practice Categories

Business & Commercial, Litigation & Appeals

Honors and Awards

• Named a 2010 Attorney of the Year by <i>The Recorder</i>

Past Employment Positions

• Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges LLP, 2001 - 2006
• Office of the Attorney General, State of California, 1996 - 2001
• Honorable David W. Hagen, United States District Court, District of Nevada, Law Clerk, 1994 - 1996

Education

• UCLA School of Law, Los Angeles, California, 1994
  J.D.
• University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, 1987
  B.A.
  Honors: cum laude
  Major: Linguistics & Psychology

Address

5900 Wilshire Boulevard, 12th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Phones

(310) 859-7811

Faxes

(310) 276-5261

Emails

Contact Us

Websites

http://www.gmsr.com