C.D. “Chuck” Michel is Senior Counsel and owner of Michel & Associates, P.C., a boutique law firm in Long Beach, California. The firm’s practice focuses on adversarial litigation and regulatory compliance advice. Areas of practice include firearms law, constitutional law, civil rights advocacy, criminal law, business litigation, land use law, employment law, and environmental law. The firm’s website is www.MichelLawyers.com.
Mr. Michel has been litigating civil and criminal firearms regulation and Second Amendment cases since 1991. He is recognized as one of the leading national authorities on firearms laws. For almost three decades he has played a significant role in advocating and defending individual civil and constitutional rights, particularly Second Amendment rights, and in helping to shape related legislation. He has been instrumental in crafting some of the most important legal challenges to legislation that infringes on rights guaranteed by the Constitution. His clients have included the National Rifle Association (NRA), the California Rifle & Pistol Association (CRPA), Gun Owners of California, Gun Owners of America, the Second Amendment Foundation, FFLGuard, gun manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and individual gun owners. He has represented thousands of individuals and companies charged with violating California’s confusing firearms laws. He has litigated hundreds of cases and been trial counsel in scores of jury trials, many of which were high profile and attracted state and national media attention. Mr. Michel has been a stakeholder in drafting legislation to protect California gun owners and an advocate in opposing ill-conceived legislation. Mr. Michel and his law firm have donated over 2 million dollars’ worth of pro bono legal advocacy for the right to keep and bear arms. He has been honored with numerous awards for his legal successes, including civil rights advocacy, trial advocacy skills, writing skills, and pro bono work.
Mr. Michel has been profiled several times in legal periodicals and has appeared in dozens of television and radio interviews and has been quoted in thousands of newspaper articles. He has had articles and editorials published in the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and other state and national newspapers and magazines.
“Professor” Michel has also taught classes in Firearms Law and Law Practice Management as an adjunct professor at Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law in Orange, California.
Mr. Michel graduated near the top of his classes from Rutgers University in New Jersey in 1980 and from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles in 1989. He began his legal career with a coveted judicial clerkship for U.S. District Court Judge William J. Rea in Los Angeles. He worked as a criminal prosecutor for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and several Southern California cities and as an advocate with the Los Angeles Federal Public Defender’s Office. Mr. Michel also practiced environmental and general civil litigation as an attorney at the renowned international law firm of O’Melveny & Myers, LLP. While at O’Melveny, Mr. Michel represented clients ranging from individuals to multinational corporations. Among many other cases and clients, he represented Exxon in connection with the Exxon Valdez oil spill and served as staff counsel to the “Christopher Commission” which investigated the Los Angeles Police Department after the Rodney King incident.
Mr. Michel grew up in what used to be rural New Jersey at a time when neighbors wished him luck as he walked out his back door and into the woods behind his house to go rabbit hunting before high school – these days the neighbors would call the SWAT team on a high school student with a gun. His father was a businessman who loved teaching others, including his three sons, shooting sports as an NRA instructor. Some of Mr. Michel’s fondest childhood memories are of backyard plinking contests with his entire family. He is striving to pass this firearm heritage along to his own sons and hopes that they will be able to pass it on to future generations of free Americans.
