Brian M. Worthington

Brian M. Worthington joined The Worthington Law Centre in 2009. He is a 2005 graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a degree in Modern Literature, and a 2009 graduate of the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he was President of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, USF Chapter.

Few attorneys have had the success Mr. Worthington has had since joining The Worthington Law Centre.  Practicing criminal defense, exclusively, he maintains an active case load of both felonies and misdemeanors in adult and juvenile courts in Monterey, San Benito, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and all the bay area counties.  He has handled a number of complex and interesting cases, achieving results very favorable to his clients. A number of those cases, including cases involving complex gang issues, three strikes law, and motivations surrounding false reports of childhood sexual abuse, are chronicled in our "Notable Cases" section.   Mr. Worthington has been successful in avoiding sex offender registration for his clients who have been convicted of qualifying crimes, including relief from the obligation to register after registration was ordered. He has extensive experience representing non-citizen defendants with a track record of avoiding deportation.  His trial experience includes cases involving sexual assault, child molestation, domestic violence and other violent felonies.  All of this success earned him selection as a Northern California Rising Star.   A distinction earned by no more than 2.5% of lawyers in California who are 40 years old or younger or who have been practicing for 10 years or less.  He was also selected as a Top 100 Trial Lawyer in California by The National Trial Lawyers.

In January 2013, Mr. Worthington opened The Worthington Law Centre’s office in San Francisco, California. There, he will continue to give the excellent representation to clients for which The Worthington Law Centre has become known.  Mr. Worthington will maintain a full case load in both our Monterey County Office and our San Francisco Office.

Mr. Worthington was recently interviewed regarding the status of California’s “Three Strikes” law, and a copy of that article can be found here.

Mr. Worthington comes quite naturally to his career as a criminal defense attorney. His childhood was filled with days spent in the courtroom, watching his father, Thomas S. Worthington, and his father’s mentor, James A. Michael, defend cases, while his evenings were often spent at The Worthington Law Centre watching and learning as Mr. Worthington and Mr. Michael planned their defense strategies.

Mr. Worthington began obtaining outstanding results for clients faced with difficult legal issues even before he was an attorney. While a second year law student, Mr. Worthington was assigned a number of cases in his position of “Certified Law Student.” Two of those cases—one involving a 19 year-old Mexican immigrant with mental deficiencies; another involving a man petitioning for relief from the sex offender registration requirement—are reflected in our "Notable Cases" section. In both cases, Mr. Worthington has been contacted by a number of other local attorneys seeking consultation on handling similar issues. In the case of the 19 year old Mexican immigrant, Mr. Worthington wrote a motion to dismiss the case, arguing the District Attorney’s policy of refusing to consider immigration consequences violated both due process and equal protection. With Mr. Worthington’s permission, versions of that brief have been filed by other attorneys in Monterey County Superior Court, California’s Sixth District Court of Appeal, and the Washington State Supreme Court.

Prior to becoming an attorney, Mr. Worthington worked for the University of San Francisco Criminal Law and Juvenile Justice Clinic, where he was assigned cases from the San Francisco County Public Defender and managed an active misdemeanor case load. He also held an internship with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.

Mr. Worthington is a member and a past board member of the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice; the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys; the California Public Defenders Association; the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center; the Monterey County Bar Association and the San Francisco County Bar Association.  He is admitted to practice in all California trial courts, the California Court of Appeal-Sixth District, the United States District Court-Northern District of California and the United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit.