Joe Leventhal is a partner and Head of Litigation for Glaser Weil’s San Diego office. As a litigator, Joe represents clients across all industries in varying legal disputes. He has led jury trial teams in both state and federal court and multiple arbitrations ranging from the protection of the First Amendment to class actions, intellectual property infringement to employment claims, and other complex business matters.
Joe obtained his law degree with honors from the Georgetown University Law Center while working on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide handling issues such as health care and education. After law school, he served as an attorney in the White House as deputy assistant to the vice president. As part of the vice president’s senior staff, Joe was then the youngest deputy assistant to the vice president at the age of 25.
Joe Leventhal’s experience and involvement with the FBA is significant. Joe served as president of the San Diego Chapter in 2015. Under his leadership, the chapter achieved the following: increased membership by 29 percent, fundraising by 1,429 percent, and social media engagement by over 134 percent; launched a new email marketing platform and two first-ever community service events; held a record-breaking 22 CLE events, including the chapter’s first-ever Women in the Law Conference (approximately 150 attendees); first annual all-day CLE session on competence, ethics, and elimination of bias; and first-ever law student moot court competition; created a government relations liaison and held its first-ever government relations event with Judiciary Committee member Rep. Darrell Issa. The chapter ended the year with a record-high bank account balance, enabling it to continue to innovate and increase its relevancy to members. Joe currently serves as the Vice President of the San Diego Federal Bar Foundation.
At the request of the Chief Judge, Joe chaired the Southern District of California’s 50th Anniversary Committee, which included several events throughout 2016. He previously co-chaired the Ninth Circuit Lawyer Representatives for the Southern District of California and chaired the Southern District of California’s Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel multiple times. Joe also serves on the Board of Directors of Just The Beginning – a Pipeline Organization. Outside of his volunteer work in the legal community, Joe serves on the board of directors of St. Vincent de Paul’s Village, the board of directors of the non-profit Ride Across California, the San Diego Steering Committee for Just the Beginning, and as a member of the Rancho Bernardo Rotary. He previously served as a commissioner on the City of San Diego Ethics Commission and as a member of the board of directors of Kids Included Together, a non-profit focused on training childcare providers how to include children with disabilities instead of simply accommodating such children.