Torri Sherlin

Torri Sherlin is a native San Diegan who brings a lifelong passion for the environment to Baron & Budd’s Environmental Litigation Group, which she joined in 2018. Ms. Sherlin is proud to be a shareholder and key attorney on the Baron & Budd team that has resolved more than $1.62 billion for public entities in wildfire claims since December of 2018 alone.

Ms. Sherlin received the prestigious California Lawyer Attorney of the Year Award from the Daily Journal in 2020 for her work on the most comprehensive public entity wildfire resolution in the state’s history on behalf of 23 public entities that suffered losses as a result of the 2017 Thomas fire and associated Montecito debris flows, and the 2018 Woolsey fire with Southern California Edison for $360 million. The resolution involved a historic agreement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services that reimburses federal and state disaster relief funds. Ms. Sherlin was instrumental in crafting and managing this first of its kind program with FEMA and Cal OES, and also handled key aspects of the litigation and the resolution.

Ms. Sherlin’s favored niche is in public entity representation, which is a natural fit as several members of her family dedicated their careers to public entities, most notably her father, for the county of San Diego for more than 40 years, and her mother, for the San Diego Unified School District for more than 30 years. Continuing this rich heritage of public advocacy, Torri Sherlin is proud to represent public entities as plaintiffs in litigation to recoup losses resulting from corporate negligence.

She actively represents or has resolved the cases of public entities of all sizes in wildfire litigation against utility companies such as PG&E, Southern California Edison, and PacifiCorp. Her public entity clients include: the counties of Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Shasta, Tehama, Plumas, Butte, Lassen, and Siskiyou; the cities of Santa Barbara, Malibu, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Santa Rosa, Chico, and San Buenaventura; and special districts such as Los Angeles County Flood Control District, the Consolidated Fire Protection District of Los Angeles County, Ventura County Watershed Protection District, Ventura County Fire Protection District, Santa Barbara County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, Santa Barbara County Fire Protection District, Mountains and Recreation Conservation Agency, Conejo Recreation and Park District, Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District, Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency, Montecito Water District, Montecito Fire Protection District, Carpinteria Summerland Fire Protection District, Ebbetts Pass Fire District, San Andreas Fire District, West Point Fire District, and Thermalito Water and Sewer District, among others. Ms. Sherlin also represents non-profit agencies, community associations, and community college districts in wildfire litigation.

In addition, Ms. Sherlin represents numerous school districts in litigation against JUUL Labs, Inc., the leading e-cigarette manufacturer, for creating an epidemic of youth vaping that has infiltrated schools across the nation, impeding student learning and putting the health and safety of students at risk. Ms. Sherlin represents more than 75 school districts across the nation in the JUUL litigation. As the mother of a young toddler, she cares deeply for the future of our next generation, and is dedicated to “Protecting What’s Right.”

The steadfast determination Torri Sherlin now brings to Baron & Budd once drove her competitive spirit as a college athlete. Ms. Sherlin competed in the women’s soccer, cross country and track teams at Concordia University in Austin, Texas, concluding her athletic campaign with a conference championship, regional rankings and individual all-conference awards.  In her free time, Ms. Sherlin enjoys exercising in the great outdoors, exploring restaurants around the world, and spending time with her family.