Cory Briggs

Cory Jay Briggs (born November 18, 1968) is an attorney who resides in San Diego, California. He is the principal at Briggs Law Corporation. Cory is a candidate for San Diego City Attorney.

Briggs was born and raised in Ontario, California.  His father, Dale, was a schoolteacher in the Chaffey Joint Unified School District and a co-owner of City Rentals, in Ontario.  His mother, Judy, was a licensed clinical social worker in Ontario.  His paternal grandfather, Homer, was a former member of the Ontario City Council and served as mayor pro tempore, and before that was a teacher and the superintendent at the Ontario-Montclair School District (OMSD); after his death, OMSD’s administration building was renamed to bear his name, as was a community park close to where he lived.  Briggs has two brothers: Jeffrey, a sales manager in Sacramento; and Curtis, a criminal-defense attorney in San Francisco.

Briggs attended Chaffey High School in Ontario, California; Chaffey Community College, where he graduated in 1989 with an A.S. degree in accounting. He also attended UC Riverside where he graduated in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts and a major in philosophy.

Briggs earned his Juris Doctor law degree from California Western School of Law in San Diego in 1995 and was admitted to practice law in California in June 1995. Briggs continued his education at Claremont Graduate School, in Claremont, California, where he earned an M.A. in Philosophy in 1997.

• Ph.D. (Politics, Philosophy & Public Policy (A.B.D.), University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
• LL.M. (International/Environmental Law (A.B.T.)), The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
• M.A. (Philosophy 1997), Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California
• J.D. (Law 1995), California Western School of Law, San Diego, California
• B.A. (Philosophy 1992), University of California, Riverside, California;
• A.S. (Accounting 1989), Chaffey Community College, Rancho Cucamonga, California

Early career

After passing the bar exam in 1995, Briggs went to work at Mundell, Odlum & Haws in San Bernardino, California, from 1995-1998. He worked at the firm as an Associate Attorney.

In 1998, Briggs left California for Washington, DC, to continue his education. While enrolled in graduate school at the George Washington University and the University of Maryland, he taught business ethics, critical thinking, philosophy of law, and environmental ethics for those schools.  

Briggs returned to San Diego in 2002 and started Briggs Law Corporation in March of that year.

Current practice

In 2002, Briggs founded Briggs Law Corporation with offices in Upland and San Diego, California.

His firm specializes in Small Business Law, Environmental Law, and Taxpayer Rights.  The firm has litigated dozens of high-profile cases, most notably the Convention Center Expansion, the Tourism Marketing District, the Sierra Club’s first lawsuit against the County of San Diego over greenhouse gas emissions, environmentalists’ lawsuit against the San Diego Association of Governments for adopting a regional transportation plan that allowed too much air pollution in poor communities, the South Bay Bribery Scandal, and Spotlight on Coastal Corruption’s lawsuit against five California Coastal Commissioners for participating in illegal secret meetings.

On July 11, 2013, Briggs and two others, Donna Frye and Marco Gonzalez, each called for the resignation of San Diego Mayor Bob Filner. At a news conference, Briggs, who backed Filner’s run for Mayor, wrote a pointed letter to Filner dated July 9, 2013, asking him to resign. At the news conference, Briggs affirmed the comments made in the letter, “I have spent the better part of my career standing up for principles of open, accountable, responsible government. It’s clear to me that your office has violated these principles.”

On August 23, 2013, Bob Filner agreed to resign as Mayor of San Diego.

Affordable Housing Coalition of San Diego County

Reason for Suing: The Affordable Housing Coalition of San Diego County sued to prevent the New Plaza Hotel from being converted from a relatively affordable single-room-occupancy (SRO) hotel rooms to a high-end tourist hotel without providing replacement housing.  The conversion would eliminate 185 SRO hotel rooms.

San Diegans for Open Government

San Diegans for Open Government (SDOG) sued the City of San Diego claiming it ignored multiple requests for information under the California Public Records Act.

The complaint stipulates, “but CITY (apart from the City Clerk’s response) has not responded further or provided a single responsive public record.”

San Diego Waterfront Coalition

The San Diego Waterfront Coalition sued the City of San Diego, the Port of San Diego, and others for allegedly illegally paying $5 million to a hotel developer who controls the waterfront location where the City wants to build a San Diego Convention Center expansion.

CREED-21

The City of San Diego eliminated the requirement that new housing developments provide parking spaces for residents without studying the environmental consequences of eliminating the requirement.

According to the complaint, at least one of the Petitioner's members reside in, or near, the City of San Diego, California, and has an interest in, among other things, ensuring compliance with environmental laws and protecting the City's quality of life.