P. Arnsen ("Arnie") Blakely

Orange County Lawyer

Arnie Blakely devotes his practice of law to a combination of areas that include litigation (lawsuits) and transactional matters. Arnie has been in the full time practice of law for over forty years.

Arnie Blakely's transactional work (drafting contracts, wills and trusts) is backed by years of the trial of more than 375 cases (includes jury trials and bench trials). This extensive experience with lawsuits provides practical experience in formulating contract terms, trust provisions and planning that steer clear of expensive lawsuits. His work over the past forty years provided valuable insight and knowledgeable perception for those clients with all types of financial problems, employee relations, business collections, contract disputes, corporation shareholder issues, administrative compliance, and dealing with the Internal Revenue Service with potential or real tax problems.

Work History

In 1971 Mr. Blakely began his law work prosecuting crimes in the District Attorney's Office, where he handled many major felony and misdemeanor trials. This work included working with various public agencies, law enforcement agencies (FBI, CHP, Deputy Sheriffs and local police) investigating cases with law enforcement, drafting search warrants, filing criminal complaints, attending to preliminary hearings, grand jury indictments, opposing pre-trial motions, negotiating settlements, training new lawyers, and a variety of other skills obtainable only through trying a large number of cases. He received the Distinguished Service Award as an outstanding prosecutor in the Santa Clara District Attorney's Office (San Jose office).

After completing his work with the District Attorney's office, he devoted his full time practice to the civil defense of Certified Public Accountants. Mr. Blakely had previously passed the Certified Public Accountants exam during the same year he passed the Bar Exam, and was qualified to work with balance sheets, income statements, funds flow statements, auditing problems, and defalcations. Here the work related to compliance with required auditing procedures, financial statement disclosure problems, audit work paper oversights, misuse of funds, federal 10(b)(5) issues and a host of other accounting related problems. In 1976 Mr. Blakely began work as an attorney employee of P. Arnsen Blakely (then known as Cohen, Stokke & Davis) and remained with this law firm to the present. After a few years, he became a partner of this law firm and at the present time he is the senior partner of the firm. During his many years with this law firm his practice has expanded to include a wide variety of business and personal matters for a large variety of clients.

Mr. Blakely received his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Southern California and graduated cum-laude earning his law degree from Southwestern University School of Law. He also studied as a graduate business candidate in accounting at the University of Southern California and has passed the Certified Public Accountants Exam. Mr. Blakely has been admitted to practice law before every state court in California, Federal District Courts in California, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Tax Court. He has been a long-time member of the Orange County Bar Association and has served as a judge pro tem and an arbitrator on a variety of civil cases. Mr. Blakely has also served as a member of the board of directors on various nonprofit corporations.