Craig A. Parton

Experience
Mr. Parton's practice involves a variety of complex litigation matters. He has handled jury trials and appeals in state and federal courts in numerous jurisdictions.

Mr. Parton has handled to verdict or settlement over seventy-five environmental contamination and natural resources cases. He served as defense counsel in the often cited federal court case of Wilshire Westwood v. Arco which established the now well known "petroleum exclusion" under CERCLA.

In addition, he recently completed a nine month jury trial involving the controversial gasoline additive MTBE. This was the first case in the United States to go to trial on the question of whether MTBE is a defective product.

His environmental practice has included representation of residential, commercial and agricultural land owners, publicly traded oil and gas companies, municipalities, retail gasoline distributors, landfill owners, and small business owners and partnerships.

Mr. Parton has served as trial counsel in the last two groundwater basin adjudications that have gone to trial in California. He represented a private landowner in the Santa Maria Groundwater Basin case, and was trial counsel for a public water management district in the Seaside Groundwater Basin adjudication.

Education
California Polytechnic State University (B.A., summa cum laude, 1977);
The Simon Greenleaf School of Law, Strasbourg, France (M.A., 1984);
University of California, Hastings College of the Law (J.D., 1987), Executive Note & Comment Editor, COMM/ENT, The Hastings Journal of Communications and Entertainment Law, 1986-1987.

Admissions
California;
United States District Court, Northern, Central and Eastern Districts of California, Southern District of Nevada;
United States Circuit Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit;
United States Supreme Court

Memberships
California State Bar Association
Santa Barbara County Bar Association (past chairman of the Litigation Section, 1992-1994).

Activities
Mr. Parton is the United States director of the International Academy of Apologetics and Human Rights which is based in Strasbourg, France. He teaches in the areas of theology, law, and human rights for two weeks each summer in Strasbourg at the annual session of this seminar.

Publications
Richard Whately: A Man For All Seasons (Canadian Institute for Law, Theology and Public Policy: Edmonton, 1997);
The Defense Never Rests (Concordia Publishing House: St. Louis, 2003);
Religion on Trial (Wipf & Stock: Eugene, Oregon, 2008).

Craig A. Parton

Partner
Phone: 805.962.0011, ext. 122
Fax: 805.965.3978
E-mail

Civil Litigation
Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Church/Ecclesiastical Law