SEAN CLAGGETT
Sean graduated from UNLV (2000) with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Thereafter, Sean graduated cum laude from the UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law (2003). While attending Boyd School of Law, Sean was a staff editor of the Nevada Law Journal, and a member of the National Moot Court team. Sean also won the Society of Advocates oral argument competition as a second year law student.
After graduating from Boyd School of Law, Sean was employed at a high-profile criminal defense law firm. After working for this firm for over two and a half years, Sean decided to start his own firm. On January 1, 2005, Sean opened his law firm with a single client and one employee. Today Claggett & Sykes Law Firm has over 70 employees, which includes over 20 lawyers, and has hundreds of active litigation and claims files.
In 2009, Sean was elected by his peers to serve on the board of the Boyd School of Law Alumni Association and has served as both the Vice President and President of this board. In 2010, Sean received the Alumni of the Year award for the Boyd School of Law, and in 2023 was awarded the inaugural William S Boyd School of Law Alumni Association Legacy Award. He has been recognized by many attorneys as one of the top trial attorneys in Nevada and was named Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2017. Sean’s trial success has seen verdicts up to almost half a billion dollars, many in seven to nine figures, including a record $485 million jury verdict against a national healthcare company.
Sean has been recognized by Legal Aid of Southern Nevada for the Pro Bono work he has done over the years and acts as an arbitrator for personal injury cases throughout the Las Vegas area. Additionally, in 2013, Sean became an adjunct professor at UNLV Boyd School of Law, where he currently teaches Law Practice Management.
Sean’s success as a trial lawyer has allowed him to expand his philanthropic passion. Sean and his firm have donated both time and money to charities such as the Challenged Athletes Foundation, HELP of Southern Nevada, Three Square, Child Seekers, March of Dimes, Greg Maddux Foundation, Boy Scouts of America, and Boys and Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada, just to name a few.
Roughly 15 years ago, Sean began conducting focus groups and quickly became obsessed with learning more about his cases through the wisdom of the focus group members. He has conducted over 800 focus groups over the past 15 years. Back in 2014, he asked Focus Graphics CEO (and brother), Seton Claggett, to create a way for him to more easily see the patterns that were appearing in repeated focus groups on the same case. He began to believe that the old way of viewing focus groups, which was, “focus groups are great for issue spotting but not for determining case value,” was flat wrong. In 2016, Sean obtained a verdict against Lowes in which his data had predicted the verdict. A few years later he met John and Alicia Campbell, who were doing a lot of research in Big Data. Over the years, John, Alicia, and Sean have studied and consulted on countless cases together. The research done, and the jury verdicts obtained after Big Data studies were conducted on the cases, have proven without a doubt that jury verdicts are not random but rather are extremely predictable. Sean has personally tried and obtained verdicts over the past five years in a combined amount of over $600,000,000, all of which were predicted by Big Data. Additionally, John, Alicia, and Sean have consulted on cases that have resulted in an additional $6,500,000,000 in verdicts and settlements over the past five years. Their years of research have culminated with their book, Juryball, which is the first book ever published discussing the use of data in predicting jury behavior.
In his spare time, Sean enjoys cycling, playing baseball, golfing, traveling, and spending time with his wife, Lou, and two kids.
Learn more about Sean here.