Yury A. Kolesnikov
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Overview
Yury A. Kolesnikov is a Partner and Chair of the Appellate Practice Group in Haight’s San Diego office. His practice focuses on appellate advocacy, with extensive experience handling high-stakes appeals in both state and federal courts across the country.
Mr. Kolesnikov has served as the principal brief writer in more than 35 appeals, including before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, California Supreme Court, Delaware Supreme Court, and Missouri Supreme Court, and has argued before the Ninth Circuit (including before the court sitting en banc), Delaware Supreme Court, and multiple state intermediate appellate courts. His appellate work spans a broad range of complex legal issues, and he is regularly trusted to handle critical motions and briefing at all stages of the litigation.
Before entering private practice, Mr. Kolesnikov gained valuable experience clerking for Judge David R. Thompson on the Ninth Circuit and for Chief Judge Irma E. Gonzalez and Judge Roger T. Benitez on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. He also externed for Judge Consuelo M. Callahan on the Ninth Circuit during law school. In these roles, he conducted in-depth legal research and drafted both published and unpublished judicial opinions in civil and criminal matters—an experience that informs his appellate practice today.
Mr. Kolesnikov received his Juris Doctor from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, graduating first in his class. While in law school, he worked as a research assistant to Dean Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, assisting the Dean with speaking, writing, and committee engagements focused on judicial independence, access to justice, civil liberties, foreign relations, and national security, and as a research assistant to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, assisting with updating and revising course materials for an international law course on fundamental rights in Europe and United States. Mr. Kolesnikov was also the Chief Articles Editor of the McGeorge Law Review and participated in two international law moot court competitions, which included a second-place finish at the prestigious Niagara International Moot Court Competition.
Mr. Kolesnikov previously practiced complex civil litigation, focusing on securities class actions, consumer class actions, and shareholder derivative actions.