GENERAL PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

Stephen R. McCutcheon's practice focuses on representing clients in sensitive and high profile matters, including matters related to civil and constitutional rights and the enforcement of campaign and election laws. Mr. McCutcheon is an experienced advocate, has briefed cases at all levels of the state and federal courts, and has successfully argued cases in the trial courts and before the California Court of Appeal. He has participated in the representation of clients in a variety of matters, including Senator Ross Johnson in Johnson v. Bustamante, in a successful challenge to the Lieutenant Governor's illegal campaign fundraising practices, and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Sacramento in litigation regarding personal injury claims. Mr. McCutchoen has also worked with the proponents of ballot initiatives in the preparation, circulation, and qualification of initiative measures, and in litigation to secure the right of California's citizens to exercise their right to vote.

As a staff attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, he fought to defend and implement the will of the voters as expressed through popular initiatives, and led litigation against state and local entities infringing on individual rights. For example, in C&C Construction, Inc, v. Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Mr. McCutcheon successfully argued that the utility's race-based public contracting program was discriminatory and violated the California Constitution. In Coral Construction, Inc., v. City and County of San Francisco, 116 Cal. App. 4th 6 (2004), Mr. McCutcheon led a similar challenge to the constitutionality of race and sex-based public contracting policies implemented by the City and County of San Francisco and the San Francisco International Airport.

Mr. McCutcheon co-authored "The Last Refuge of Official Discrimination: The Federal Funding Exception to California's Proposition 209," 44 Santa Clara Law Review 457, 2004, and previously served as a comment staff writer to the Pacific Law Journal.

Mr. McCutcheon earned his J.D. from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in 1997, graduating With Great Distinction, and as a member of the Order of the Coif and Traynor Honor Society. He earned his B.A. degree in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is admitted to practice in California, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits, and the United States Supreme Court.