Jon A. Titus
Jon A. Titus enjoys the art of taking complicated and confusing factual scenarios and legal issues, simplifying them and then breaking them down into easily understandable parts. Jon has been called a master strategist who looks at a problem from every angle, and then determines the most sensible and cost-effective way to handle it. He practices primarily in the sophisticated areas of real estate law and securities law where for over thirty years he has assisted clients in navigating complex matters.Jon began his career with a national law firm handling large-scale securities and anti-trust litigation, representing clients as substantial and diverse as Rupert Murdoch to Kellogg Company to Georgia Pacific. Jon has handled almost everything there is to handle in securities law, from private transactions to public offerings, and from defending regulatory actions to litigating securities fraud cases. Similarly, he has broad and diverse experience in all aspects of real estate law primarily representing real estate developers and home builders.
PROFESSIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
Provided legal counsel for the first private placement for America West Airlines, Inc. which went on to merge with US Airways and then with American Airlines.
Represented a financially destitute elder executive of a large local company who was “put out to pasture” by his life-long employer. His client was offered little to nothing for his shares in the company he helped to build. After filing a securities fraud case against the company, Jon facilitated a multimillion dollar settlement which allowed his client to live out the rest of his years in comfort and dignity.
Represented two women in a NASD (now FINRA) arbitration which resulted in the first ever treble damage award in an arbitration proceeding.
Perhaps Jon’s most famous case, where he was quoted in media from the London Times to his hometown newspaper, the Green Bay Press Gazette, involved representing a group of investors against a former lunar landing astronaut over a failed research and development partnership. Jon helped obtain a fraud judgment against the former astronaut, creating quite a stir in the space community.MOST UNUSUAL REPRESENTATION
Jon represented a woman whose husband disappeared. This case was highlighted on “Unsolved Mysteries.” A challenge in this case was that the mystery was not conclusively solved since no body was found. Jon worked to have his client’s husband declared dead by the Probate Court, thereby allowing his client to collect on all life insurance and accidental death insurance policies. Jon additionally associated with counsel to obtain an award for widow workman’s compensation benefits. This last part was most important to Jon’s widow client who was comforted by the judicial finding that her husband was murdered doing his job.RECOGNITION
- AV® Preeminent™ Rating for over twenty years, Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings system, which connotes the highest possible rating in both legal ability and ethical standards
- Super Lawyer rating in Real Estate Law
- Named one of Arizona’s Finest Lawyers
- President of Legal Netlink Alliance, a network of over 100 prominent small to mid-sized law firms throughout the World.
- Member of the initial group of Certified Real Estate Specialists in 1986 when the State Bar of Arizona first recognized this specialty
- Past Chair of the State Bar of Arizona Section on Securities Law
- Frequent lecturer on business legal issues focusing on real estate law and securities law
- Selected as a Top Rated Lawyer in Real Estate Law by Martindale-Hubbell
SERVICE
Jon is active in a number of charities, most notably the Arizona Kidney Foundation where he championed the Cars for Kidneys program. This program has raised millions of dollars for Arizonans afflicted with kidney disease.IN JON'S OWN WORDS
Jon has been an avid reader his entire life. As a youth, he was inspired to become a lawyer by the character Atticus Finch in one of his favorite novels, To Kill a Mockingbird.
“One of my memorable Atticus Finch moments came when I represented a family in a securities fraud case against a national broker-dealer. I was able to navigate the family through the stress and division of contested litigation, where they blamed each other for the loss of their life savings, to a trial victory. These efforts inspired the teenage sons of this family to go to law school and pursue careers as lawyers.”EDUCATION
B.A., Economics and Mathematics, University of Arizona, 1977. Jon co-authored a publication which won a national award resulting from his honors work on experimental economics, where he had the privilege of studying under Vernon Smith, the 2002 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics.
J.D., Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University, 1980. Jon is the 1996 recipient of the Alumni Achievement Award from Arizona State University.ADMISSIONS
State Bar of Arizona, 1980
United States District Court, District of Arizona, 1980
