University of Southern California, Gould School of Law, J.D., 1988
Honors: Editor, Moot Court Program
Brown University, B.A., History & Economics, 1983
Complex Litigation, Business Law
Admitted: State Bar of California; U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit; U.S. District Courts for the Central, Eastern, Northern, and Southern Districts of California.
Mr. Marks has practiced civil and commercial litigation in California for over 30 years. Mr. Marks has served as “first chair” counsel in dozens of bench trials and over twenty jury trials that have reached verdict, and is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) with the rank of associate.
Mr. Marks received his law degree in 1988 from the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law, where he served as editor of the moot court program. He received undergraduate degrees in history and economics from Brown University in 1983. He is also a diplomate of the University of Coimbra in Coimbra, Portugal, where he was awarded a Gulbenkian Fellowship in 1981.
Beginning in 2011, Mr. Marks served as a Commissioner on the California Commission on Access to Justice, a governmental agency comprised of trial court and appellate judges and practicing lawyers, among other legal professionals. Its mission is to oversee and coordinate programs dedicated to improving access to the California courts by those who are unable to afford legal counsel. Among Mr. Marks’s fellow commissioners were three current members of the California Supreme Court.
Mr. Marks has served as a member and then an advisor on the Executive Committee of the Solo and Small Firm Section of the California Bar. Previously, he served on the Executive Committee of the State Bar’s Litigation Section, the Committee on the Administration of Justice, and the Litigation Section’s Committee on Civil Jury Instructions.
Mr. Marks is a former Chair of the Editorial Board of Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine. He has also served as a Delegate to the policy-making arm of the American Bar Association, the ABA’s House of Delegates.
Mr. Marks has served as a volunteer attorney for Public Counsel, the largest pro bono institution serving the legal needs of the disadvantaged. Based on his long-standing commitment to Public Counsel’s Community Development Project, Mr. Marks was honored as “Advocate of the Year” by Public Counsel for the year 2008.