Anthony P. Schoenberg

Anthony “Tony” Schoenberg is chair of our Business Litigation Group. In this role, he is involved in the development of strategy, staffing cases, planning, and collaborating with all the litigators at the firm. He is also responsible for oversight of all the firm’s pro bono litigation.

In his litigation practice, Tony focuses on all aspects of real estate litigation, as well as contractual arbitrations, and trade secret issues. His cases are roughly split between California and federal courts, and his clientele is a mixture of large technology companies, small private companies, and high net worth individuals.

Tony’s approach to disputes is practical-minded. He emphasizes the overriding importance of each client’s strategic objective, which is to get the problem, issue or situation at hand resolved as sensibly as possible. His cases are managed with this in mind—he is sensitive to the number of hours he bills his cases and the attorneys staffed on any particular matter. He knows from experience that trying cases means risk and expense for his client. Accordingly, although Tony is an aggressive, effective, and successful trial attorney who is certainly happy to take a fight to court if he has to, he will seek a better solution if one can be arrived at. Decades of experience have given Tony a strong sense of the right way to approach each case, including staffing and management, to meet his clients’ objectives.

He’s litigated an exceptionally broad range of matters, much of it related to real estate-related disputes. These have ranged from allegations of fraud arising from an urban real estate project to breach of contract connected to a large agricultural land purchase to arbitration arising from construction of one of the world’s largest solar power plants. Outside of real estate matters, he has also litigated numerous trade secret cases, disputes over software development agreements, and more.

A seasoned, senior and strategic trial lawyer, Tony is valued by his clients for his ability to focus his work on what really matters, and avoid losing sight of the forest for the trees. Nobody actively seeks out litigation—at best, it’s a necessary evil. That being said, Tony’s counsel helps his clients minimize the distraction and expense attendant upon disputes. He is that rarest of creature—a trial attorney who knows firsthand when it’s time to go to court, but also knows when it’s time not to.