Learn the craft
Four courses, sixteen MCLE credits, and the member library. $99 a month, or $990 a year, and you can cancel from your account.
The membership →
About
David Sugden
A trial lawyer and shareholder at Call & Jensen in Newport Beach. He tries high-stakes cases to verdict, for plaintiffs and for defendants, in California and elsewhere.
He founded Evidence at Trial, where he teaches the four courses on this site, wrote Picked to Win, and built JuryBoard. All of it comes out of the practice rather than instead of it, which is the only reason any of it is worth your time.
- PracticeBusiness, employment, trade secret and intellectual property trials, nationally
- BarAdmitted in California, New York, and Texas
- FellowshipMember, American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA)
- RecognitionTop 50 Super Lawyers in Orange County
- RecognitionTrial Lawyer of the Year, The Trial Lawyers · Daily Journal Top 20 Attorneys Under 40
- BooksPicked to Win (2026)
On air
Why twelve people
could not agree.
A Massachusetts murder trial ended in a hung jury. Fox News asked David Sugden to explain what happens inside a jury room once the door closes, and why twelve people fail to agree.
The Will Cain Show · Fox News · September 2026
Results
2025, on both sides of the caption.
Three verdicts in one year, two for the defense and one for the plaintiff. The point is not the numbers. It is that the person teaching this is still doing it.
| When | Role | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2025 Beverly Hills |
Defense | Defense verdict, 12–0, in under two hours
Alleged partnership dispute; plaintiff advanced a damages model reaching $100 million. |
|
| Jun 2025 Orange County |
Plaintiff | $8,685,192
Sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and retaliation. Liability on all claims. |
|
| Feb 2025 Orange County |
Defense | Complete defense verdict, unanimous
loanDepot; three-week trial on sexual harassment and constructive discharge. |
§ Earlier
| San Diego | Plaintiff | $47,400,000
Trade secret misappropriation and copyright infringement. |
|
| Los Angeles | Plaintiff | $9,000,000
Breach of contract. |
|
| Orange County | Plaintiff | $2,230,000
Trade secret misappropriation. |
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
The three strands
One practice, and everything that came out of it.
Most of the year is trial work. Cases that are going to verdict, usually commercial or employment, often with an expert problem in them, and increasingly with other lawyers bringing him in as the date gets close. That is the job, and nothing else on this site would exist without it.
The teaching started because the same questions kept arriving from the same kind of lawyer — competent, busy, never shown how the rules actually behave under pressure. The courses are recorded between trials, which is why they are about what happens rather than about what the treatise says should happen.
The writing came last. Picked to Win is about jury selection, the phase of trial that gets the least instruction and the most superstition. JuryBoard is the tool version of the same argument.
Where to go from here
Three ways, and they do not overlap.
Bring him into a case
Retained as trial counsel and as co-counsel on cases going to verdict, for plaintiffs and for defendants. Best conversations start early.
Trial counsel →Read the book
Picked to Win, 214 pages on jury selection. The first chapter is free and the whole thing is $49.
The book →Start somewhere
The free ones cost an afternoon.
The Rules of Evidence cheat sheet, the Sargon training, and the first chapter of the book. If they are useful, everything else is on the table.
