LOS ANGELES – Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP announced today that Jody Porter has joined the firm in Los Angeles as a partner. She joins after an almost 30-year career with Toyota Motor North America, where she served as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel over business and product liability litigation. She will represent clients as a member of the Business and Distribution Litigation Team.  

While at Toyota, she worked on or oversaw nearly every type of legal issue that automotive companies and many other major corporations face, with a particular emphasis on class action litigation, government investigations, and crisis management. Ms. Porter was one of the lead in-house lawyers who navigated Toyota through the unintended acceleration crisis and has led the defense teams in multiple multi-district class actions, government investigations (DOJ, NHTSA, EPA, and other federal and state agencies), and the Takata airbag crisis. 

Additionally, Ms. Porter led Toyota’s defense teams in many high-profile dealer cases, product recalls, and government investigations. For three decades, she provided trusted counsel to Toyota’s top executives and other leaders in the areas of product distribution, logistics, state dealer franchise laws, customs and export control, marketing agreements, product planning, and tax and finance, among others. She led the Toyota legal team that established Toyota’s Scion Division, and she managed all of Toyota de Puerto Rico’s legal affairs. She also led the legal team that established Toyota’s sales subsidiary in Mexico and managed all legal affairs in Mexico.

“Toyota is a long-time client of the Firm, and many of us at Nelson Mullins have had the pleasure of working with Jody in that context,” said Los Angeles Managing Partner Rich Otera. “But we are even more excited to have Jody join our Nelson Mullins team. She will be the seventh former in-house lawyer to join our team from a major automotive company, and she adds a wealth of experience and industry knowledge on a multitude of issues.”

 “Since announcing her decision to retire from Toyota in Plano, Texas, and return to her home in Los Angeles, California, Jody has been pursued by several national firms, as well as a handful of companies, automotive, and otherwise,” said S. Keith Hutto, who leads the Business and Distribution Litigation Team. “She has chosen to join Nelson Mullins because of her long history with the Firm, the Firm’s deep bench of leading automotive lawyers, and our mutual belief that she can help expand our existing automotive practice into subject areas where we currently are underrepresented.”

Porter earned her JD from Stanford Law School and a BA from the University of Virginia.