Lori J. Costanzo, Founding Partner
Lori Costanzo is a seasoned civil litigator, mediator, and advocate with more than 35 years of experience representing clients throughout Northern California. Proud of her Italian heritage, Lori brings warmth, candor, resilience, and a deep sense of family and community to her work. Known for her fearless, thoughtful, and deeply personal approach to advocacy, Lori has built her career around giving voice to those who need strong, principled representation. Her work is grounded in authenticity, service, and a commitment to helping people navigate conflict with clarity, dignity, and purpose.
Since 1989, Lori has practiced civil litigation in state and federal courts across California. Her experience includes employment discrimination, labor and employment disputes, wrongful termination, professional malpractice, personal injury, business litigation, contract disputes, and other complex civil matters. Over the course of her career, she has handled jury trials, bench trials, arbitration, and mediation, bringing both strategic discipline and practical judgment to every matter she undertakes.
While litigation has shaped Lori’s career, mediation has become one of her greatest professional passions. She believes mediation offers parties a meaningful opportunity to be heard, to understand risk, and to move toward resolution in a way that litigation often cannot provide. Drawing on decades of courtroom and negotiation experience, Lori brings empathy, persistence, and a practical understanding of case value to her work as a mediator and neutral. She has serves as a Judge Pro Tem in Santa Clara County and is currently a Mediator and Early Neutral Evaluator on the Santa Clara County Superior Court Panel. Lori also continues to develop her private mediation practice, where she focuses on helping parties resolve disputes efficiently, respectfully, and with lasting closure.
In addition to leading a thriving civil litigation and mediation practice, Lori remains actively involved in the legal community and the broader community she serves. She has served on the Women Lawyers Executive Committee and the Labor and Employment Executive Committee for the Santa Clara County Bar Association, Judiciary Committee, and the Santa Clara County Bar Assoc. Board of Trustees. She also sits on the Board for the Silicon Valley Pro Bono Project. She was appointed by Supervisor Susan Ellenberg to the County Equal Access to Employment Commission. Lori has also served as an adjunct professor teaching Advanced Legal Analysis and Writing, Critical Lawyering Skills at Santa Clara University School of Law, volunteered with Senior Adult Legal Assistance, and served on the board of Latinas Contra Cancer, where she has been involved in developing patient advocacy programming.
Prior to founding her own firm, Lori practiced with several Bay Area law firms, including Morton, Bennett & Lacy in San Francisco, Branson, Fitzgerald and Howard in Redwood City and Mitchell, Stock & Burrow in San Jose. She earned her law degree from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, and received her B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Arizona.
