Sean Clagget

SEAN CLAGGETT BIO (updated 10/24/24) 

I was born in Twin Falls, Idaho, and moved to Boise, Idaho when I was three years  old. I lived in Boise until the end of third grade. I then moved to Las Vegas. I  attended 8 different schools from 1st-12th grade. I played junior college baseball  in California. I finished my bachelor's degree at UNLV. Just before I graduated, I  married my high school sweetheart, Lou, and we have been happily married  since May of 2000. I attended UNLV Boyd School of Law and graduated in 2003. I  started my own law firm, on January 1, 2005, with a single employee. Today  Claggett & Sykes has over 80 employees, which includes 28 lawyers. In 2024,  Will Sykes, Matt Granda and I were fortunate to create a new firm in Connecticut  with our partner Andrew Garza. The creation of this firm was the first time two  trial lawyers who each had seven, eight and nine figure verdicts had combined  forces. This new firm is Claggett Sykes & Garza, and we have 9 attorneys and  over 20 team members. All told, I have offices in Las Vegas, Reno, New York City,  and Hartford.  

Roughly 15 years ago I began conducting focus groups and quickly became  obsessed with learning more about my cases through the wisdom of the focus  group members. I have conducted over 800 focus groups over the past 15 years.  Back in 2014, I asked my brilliant brother, Seton Claggett, to create software for  me so I could more accurately track my data from our focus groups. Seton  created this software, and I was able to more easily see the patterns that were  appearing in our repeated focus groups on the same case. I 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, I obtained a  verdict against Lowes in which my data had predicted the verdict. A few years  later I met John Campbell who was doing Big Data. John and I quickly became  great friends as we were both committed family guys with amazing wives (Alicia  and Lou) and wonderful kids. Over the years, John, Alicia and I have studied and  consulted on countless cases together. The research we have done, and the jury  verdicts obtained after Big Data studies were conducted on the cases has proven  with no doubt that jury verdicts are not random but rather, they are extremely  predictable. I have personally tried and obtained verdicts over the past five  years, in a combined amount in excess $650,000,000, which includes six eight 

figure verdicts and one nine figure verdict, all of which were predicted by Big  Data. Additionally, John, Alicia and I have consulted on cases that have resulted  in an additional $6,500,000,000 in verdicts and settlements over the past five  years. Our years of research have culminated with our book, JuryBall, which is  the first book ever published discussing the use of data in predicting jury  behavior.  

My firms currently are actively litigating and/or consulting in 33 states across  America, with West Virginia being the most recent state added to this list. 

I have been honored to be asked to speak to many plaintiff groups over the years  including the Nevada, Colorado, Oregon, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Kentucky  and Idaho Trial Lawyers. I have also had the honor of presenting at several national conferences including Trial Lawyers University.  

I have a strong core value that lawyers should focus on how they help the  community, and not on the material items they possess. 

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