James Q. McDermott joined Ferguson Case Orr Paterson in 1997 where the majority of his practice is devoted to civil litigation with an emphasis on employment and business disputes.  Jim has served as lead trial counsel in jury and bench trials in addition to extensive experience with American Arbitration Association employment and commercial arbitrations.   Although Jim routinely represents management on employment issues, he has also obtained several substantial awards for plaintiffs in employment claims against Fortune 100 companies. 

Although Jim enjoys trial and litigation work, he strives to maximize his client’s return by providing candid quality pre litigation advice regarding employee retention and termination as well as general business  and real estate issues.  

Jim graduated cum laude from the University of California Berkeley in 1991.  In 1992, in addition to traveling throughout Eastern Europe, he attended the Herder Institute at the Karl Marx University, in Leipzig Germany. He received a M.A. in political philosophy from the University of Dallas in 1994, and his law degree from the University of Santa Clara in 1997. During law school he served as an extern to the Honorable Spencer Williams in the Federal District Court in San Jose, California, where in addition to reviewing handwritten appeals from prisoners who didn't care for prison life, he conducted extensive research relating to an encryption software patent dispute.

Jim has served on the Board of Directors of the statewide California Young Lawyers Association, in addition to serving on the Board of Directors of the Ventura County  Bar Association.  When Jim isn't enthusiastically tending to his work, he can be found spending time with his wife and three kids, and when he can get away with it, surfing and diving off the Ventura coast or riding motorcycles nowhere fast in the Mojave Desert.