Mr. Woods is a partner with Hennigan, Bennett & Dorman LLP. Mr. Woods has been a first chair litigator for over 30 years. He started his career defending a high volume of personal injury cases and progressed into trying business cases involving contractual disputes, dealer terminations, and numerous forms of business torts. His practice has been focused on jury trials involving the entire gamut of civil litigation from contractual disputes including real estate and oil and gas agreements, statutory violations including antitrust, securities, environmental, intellectual property including patent infringement, unfair competition, and franchising laws, tort litigation including fraud, unfair competition, and wrongful termination, and class and derivative litigation. He now limits his practice to litigation and trial of complex business litigation

Mr. Woods' representations demonstrate the breadth of his trial experience. He obtained a defense verdict for Texaco in federal court in Fresno for the trial of a dispute regarding the drilling of a deep exploratory well and the rights to the associated oil field in Kings County, California. He obtained a defense verdict for the same oil company in San Diego Superior Court in the trial of antitrust and unfair competition claims by nineteen service station retailers regarding pricing. He represented Mobil Oil Company in the Supreme Court of Louisiana successfully defeating class certification for air pollution claims involving the residents of two parishes in the New Orleans area. He represented members of the royal family of a foreign government successfully asserting foreign sovereign immunity defenses in federal court in Los Angeles. He defeated class certification and obtained a voluntary dismissal for a vehicle manufacturer in defense of a nationwide class action for unfair competition in Superior Court in Los Angeles. He obtained summary judgment in defense of a regional medical center and its individual directors in a breach of charitable trust action involving a not-for-profit corporation and the managed health care revolution which case was featured on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. He has been representing the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in civil and criminal matters pertaining to clergy misconduct since 2002.

Education
Columbia University School of Law, J.D., 1971. Editor, Columbia Law Review; Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar; Charles Bathgate Beck Award in Real Property
Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service, B.S., International Economics, with additional emphasis in accounting, 1968

Professional Activities
Admitted: California
Arbitrator, American Arbitration Association, 1990’s
Author:"Jury Selection in Federal Court," Spring, 1990, Los Angeles County Bar Association, Litigation Section Newsletter; "Low Level Emission Class Actions," Article for CMA Tort Litigation Group, May, 1999
Speaker: Los Angeles County Bar Association programs for “Bridging the Gap,”1980; trial and trial motions,1988-91; and the trial skills series, 1991-94; Chemical Manufacturers Association Tort Litigation, Class Action, Air Pollution Cases, May 1999; National Diocesan Attorneys Association, Valuation of Mass Tort Sexual Abuse Cases, April, 2005
Member: Executive Committee of the Antitrust and Trade Regulation Section, Los Angeles County Bar Association, 2005-date (Chairman, 2004-5)

AV Peer Review Rated