Clinton H. Coddington

Member

Clinton Hays (“Bud”) Coddington is the Chairman and Founder of Coddington, Hicks & Danforth and is a trial and appellate civil lawyer who has dedicated his entire professional life to the defense of the American aviation/aerospace and insurance industries. The son of an Air Force flag officer, Mr. Coddington has lived and traveled all over the world and spent a third of his life on military installations, most of them Air Force bases. He has represented clients in complex aviation, products liability, business and insurance coverage and bad faith cases in state and federal courts throughout the United States and, on a number of occasions, in other countries.

Mr. Coddington has served as chief trial counsel and has tried numerous mass aviation disaster cases and other aviation matters, including In Re Air Disaster at Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988 in which he represented all defendants, In Re Hijacking of Pan Am Flight 073 at Karachi, Pakistan in which he represented all defendants, and In Re Air Disaster at Bombay, India, in which he represented the target defendant. He has been chief defense counsel for clients in numerous other aviation cases, including Lockheed Corporation in the incident involving TWA Flight 842 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, FlightSafety International in the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crash over Point Magu and United Air Lines in the Singapore Airlines Flight 006 disaster at Taipei, Taiwan. He currently serves as senior counsel in litigation resulting from the September 11, 2001 terrorist acts at the World Trade Center in New York City. Mr. Coddington has tried enumerable commercial, rotorcraft and utility category aviation cases in various jurisdictions throughout the United States, as well as coverage, bad faith and commercial cases. He is admitted to practice before the Second, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeal.

Mr. Coddington is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, the Association of Defense Counsel of Northern California and Nevada, Lawyer-Pilots’ Bar Association, International Association of Insurance Counsel, Defense Research Institute and the American Bar Association. He has written a number of articles for various legal and aviation publications, is an occasional lecturer on variegated legal and aviation topics and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Aviation Law at Loyola University School of Law.

Mr. Coddington tried the first case in the United States involving the failure to embark or disembarkation of a Middle Eastern individual following September 11. The matter was of some considerable interest to the aviation and insurance industries and was listed as the most important defense result in the civil rights category for the year 2002 by various publications.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii on July 8, 1939, Bud survived Pearl Harbor and went on a number of years later to receive his undergraduate education at The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York where he graduated with great distinction and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering in 1961. He was commissioned as an officer of the United States Army and served from 1961 through 1965 having received the rank of Captain before entering law school. He received his Juris Doctor degree from Boalt Hall School of Law of the University of California at Berkeley and was admitted to the California State Bar in 1969. He was thereafter admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court in 1974.

Bud’s hobbies and avocations include his family, reading, travel, music (he plays the guitar), and the defense of the insurance industry in bad faith, regulatory and insurance coverage disputes. He serves on a variety of boards and has always been active in Episcopal Church work. He has served on vestries, as Senior Church Warden, Chancellor, etc., et al.

Contact Clinton H. Coddington at ccoddington@chdlawyers.com

Clinton H. Coddington
Randolph S. Hicks
Lee J. Danforth
Richard G. Grotch
R. Wardell Loveland
David W. Wessel
Richard S. Baum
Hyon M. Kientzy
Kathryn C. Klaus
Lisa A. Costello
Christiane Sinclair
Rachel E. Carr
David C. Weaver
Sarvenaz J. Fahimi
Andrew P. Collier
Margaret M. Lesniak