Randy Merritt

My legal career reflects my upbringing in a middle class family whose parents instilled in me the value of working hard, studying hard, and helping others whenever the opportunity arises.  In particular, I learned from my dad - a fire department chief who became a sheriff’s department detective - the importance of making appropriate rapid responses to changing conditions and collecting all the relevant facts to combine the puzzle pieces of past events into a picture that tells an engaging story.

In addition to my legal practice, I have been actively involved in numerous volunteer and community activities.  For more than a decade, I have served as a director and treasurer for the non-profit organization Early Manuscript Electronic Library (http://emel-library.org).  EMEL uses digital technologies to make ancient manuscripts and other historical source materials accessible for study and appreciation by scholars and the public.  Such technologies can recover writing on ancient documents that the human eye cannot see due to damage, deterioration or erasure and can preserve these writings for future generations.   I have also volunteered  to teach classes on baseball history (another of my passions) whenever and wherever I can.

After graduating first in my class from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1996, I practiced law in Los Angeles with the highly respected firms of Latham & Watkins and O’Donnell & Shaeffer.  In 2004, I left O'Donnell & Shaffer to start my own practice for five years before merging into another national firm, Lathrop & Gage.  In 2014, I moved to the Sacramento area and re-started by own practice in Elk Grove. During the past 23 years, I have handled numerous litigation matters, in both state and federal court and before arbitration panels, for a variety of clients covering a broad range of practice areas, including employment terminations, discrimination, and wage and hour claims, corporate governance and mismanagement, environmental claims, copyright and trademark disputes, contract disputes, and fraud claims.   My clients, including both individuals and businesses - ranging from small local businesses to Fortune 500 companies, have also engaged me for legal advice addressing many legal issues, including proper procedures for corporate formation and governance, protection of copyright and trademark rights and trade secrets, employer-employee relations, privacy issues, and contractual negotiations.