Cornelius A. Holdsworth

Career

Cornelius Holdsworth was the firm's founding trial partner. He returned to Sacramento from Navy JAG service in 1946 with a Bronze Star and a habit of organizing case materials in what would become known throughout the firm as Holdsworth's Notebooks: meticulously indexed binders of witness statements, document analyses, and trial strategy that came to define the firm's preparation standard.

He practiced at Pillsbury Madison & Sutro for six years before returning to Sacramento, where he met Phineas Inkwell in 1960 when their respective clients ended up on opposing sides of a commercial dispute. Both lawyers came to respect each other's work more than they liked their own firms. They incorporated Holdsworth & Inkwell in 1962.

Trial Practice and Service

Holdsworth was the firm's principal trial partner for forty-one years. He argued forty-three matters before the California Supreme Court and twelve before the United States Supreme Court. He served on the State Bar of California's Board of Governors from 1976 to 1981. He passed in 2007, eight months before the firm's expansion to Atlanta, an expansion he had planned with the partners. His original notebooks remain in the Sacramento library.