Guy Iversen spent 27 years in the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Los Angeles, leaving in 2016 as Chief of Training. During his tenure, he was counsel or co-counsel in over 80 felony jury trials and 20 misdemeanor trials. His cases involved large scale white collar fraud, drugs and firearms offenses, bank robberies, assaults, bribery, immigration offenses, extradition, sexual assaults, attempted murder and murder, and civil rights violations. He was designated Learned Counsel in two pre-trial capital cases. In addition, Guy was lead/co-counsel in three capital habeas evidentiary hearings including Waidla v. Chappel (granting penalty phase relief) and Williams v. Davis (granting petition, vacating conviction and death sentence and ordering new trial). He supervised both trial and capital habeas attorneys for over 17 years, and was in charge of new attorney training in the office from 2010-2016. In June of 2016, he received the Outstanding Defender Award from the National Federal Public Defender’s Association.

Mr. Iversen has lectured nationally for years on a wide range of issues including cross-examination techniques, evidence, employment dispute resolution, capital habeas evidentiary hearings, medical marijuana and issues in the attorney-client relationship. During his tenure in the Federal Public Defender’s Office, he became recognized for his skills at cross-examination and strategic evidentiary litigation.

Mr. Iversen has been counsel of record in 50 Ninth Circuit appeals and argued before the Circuit Court 25 times. United States v. Johns, 5 F.3d 1267 (9th Cir. 1993). Weber v. United States District Court for the Central District of California, 9 F.3d 76 (9th Cir. 1993). United States v. Ross, 32 F.3d 1411 (9th Cir. 1994). United States v. Lipsey, 62 F.3d 1134 (9th Cir. 1995). He was also part of the litigation team In re Levenson, the first published opinion in America to find the Defense Of Marriage Act, as applied to preclude Deputy Federal Public Defender’s request for spousal health benefits, unconstitutional on equal protection grounds.

He has litigated Constitutional challenges to the actions of several local municipalities including the canine search policies at La Canada High School in La Canada, California, under the Fourth Amendment and the suspension of baseball players at John Burroughs High School in Burbank, California, under the Compelled Speech doctrine of the First Amendment. As President of the non-profit Descendants of the Earth, he successfully defended their Native American Ceremonial Sweat Lodge in Oxnard, California, under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Mr. Iversen formerly taught as an Adjunct Professor at Loyola Law School for 17 years and a Lecturer at UCLA School of Law for six years. He has taught extensively on the subjects of criminal trial advocacy, advanced criminal procedure, federal pre-trial criminal litigation; and evidence. He helped found the criminal defense clinic at UCLA in 2008. After leaving the Federal Public Defender’s Office, Guy conducted multiple in-house advocacy trainings for boutique civil litigation firms. Professor Lara Bazelon, former Federal Public Defender and current Director of USF Criminal Justice Clinic, wrote in her book Good Mother that Guy was “the greatest trial lawyer I have ever seen, including on TV…[and Guy’s] ability to see the world in four dimensions and exceptionally high level of emotional intelligence gave me so much: courtroom skills, confidence in myself.”