Cliff Carter

Mr. Carter graduated from the California Western School of Law in 1990. He is currently licensed to practice in California State Courts and in the following Federal jurisdictions: Eastern District of California, Northern District of California, Central District of California, Southern District of California, Southern District of Florida and the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.

His focus is on representing accident victims, uninsured motorist claims, under insured motorist claims, products liability actions, mass torts, class actions and governmental liability. He also has previously practiced defense of business owners, manufacturers, and insurance companies.

Cliff Carter is a past president of the Capitol City Trial Lawyers (CCTLA).  Mr. Carter has held various officer roles with CCTLA, including being on the judicial counsel which interacts with local judges on issues impacting our clients.

Mr. Carter also dedicates a significant amount of time to working with Albie Aware, a breast cancer foundation and, the rescue and saving of dogs and working with local competitive soccer clubs.

Cliff Carter started practicing in 1990 with the business litigation firm of Harmsen, Sidel, Carpenter and Olsen in San Diego California. In 1991 he moved to Sacramento to be closer to his family and went to work for Johnson, Pagliero and Schacter as an insurance defense attorney. Jim Pagliero and Cliff started their own firm and did insurance defense work until 1997.
Pagliero and Carter did trial work and extensive work with State Farm’s fraud units. This included doing examinations under oath of insureds, and doing bad faith defense work as well as representing many product manufacturers and small businesses. This time in Cliff’s career led him to a great understanding of how insurance companies operate and “think.” After 7 years of doing insurance defense, he left his defense practice to work on plaintiff work only.

When Cliff started at the Arnold Law firm there were three attorneys. When he left it had grown to 15 lawyers. Cliff eventually started the mass torts and class action department along with Kirk Wolden. This resulted in many excellent mass tort results, including representing hundreds of clients in the Denture Cream, Vioxx, Depuy hip, Fosamax (both ONJ and Femur fractures), trans-vaginal mesh and Mirapex cases. This resulted in tens of millions of dollars in settlements.

Kirk Wolden and Cliff started the class action department as well. This department eventually filed cases against Lennox Manufacturing (a Fortune 100 company) regarding their fireplaces, Nissan regarding failing brake systems, Google regarding privacy matters and many of the large hospital chains regarding billing practices. Many of these cases are still being litigated today at Carter Wolden Curtis.

As the most senior attorney at Arnold Law Firm, Cliff either oversaw or supervised every aspect of the firm. This included managing attorneys, firm growth and marketing.

On March 1, 2013 along with Kirk Wolden and Lance Curtis, Cliff opened Carter Wolden Curtis to continue the work that was being done at the Arnold Law Firm. This new firm practices in the area of personal injury, class action, product defect and medical malpractice.

Cliff has been the Capitol City Trial Lawyers Association President and has been a board member since 2003 and an officer since 2007. He has worn the hat of secretary, treasurer, vice president and president elect over the years for CCTLA. Cliff is licensed to practice in California and in the Federal jurisdictions of the Southern District of Florida and the Eastern, Southern, Northern and Central District of California.