Meet The Attorneys

Riley Clayton

OF COUNSEL

Knowing the other side’s playbook is the key to success in catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, and insurance bad faith litigation. Riley Clayton doesn’t just know that playbook — for nearly 30 years, he was the one writing it.

Before joining Cloward Trial Lawyers, Riley co-owned his 20-lawyer law firm and served as lead trial counsel for the country’s largest and most sophisticated insurance companies and many of Nevada’s most prominent hotels/casinos and other businesses, defending complex personal injury, wrongful death, and bad faith insurance claims. Over time, however, he found the scales tipped too far against the people who needed help most — ordinary individuals and families navigating an insurance system designed to minimize what they’re owed. That recognition prompted a deliberate change of course. Riley now uses everything he learned on the other side to level the playing field for his clients.

Riley understands precisely how insurance companies evaluate claims, what defense tactics they deploy, and what vulnerabilities they target. He recognizes the unfair, misguided, and often improper claims-handling practices that violate insurance industry standards, bad faith laws, and unfair claims practice statutes — practices that frequently go unchallenged because other less experienced counsel lacks the expertise to identify them. He has witnessed millions of dollars left on the settlement table, not because injured clients lacked legitimate claims, but because their attorneys delegated critical legal work to inexperienced staff and failed to appreciate and engage the full complexity of the case. Riley’s approach is the opposite: personal, tireless, and relentless effort on behalf of every client — whether a matter resolves at the negotiating table or before a jury.

Riley’s litigation experience is extensive and spans nearly every category of serious injury and wrongful death. His first-hand work includes premises liability cases involving shootings, stabbings, and criminal attacks; catastrophic automobile, motorcycle, trucking and boating accidents; amusement park and ride malfunctions; crowd crush incidents at sporting venues; drownings; elevator and escalator failures; serious slip and trip falls; and severe animal mauling cases. He has also handled significant fire and property damage insurance claims and complex coverage disputes arising out of serious injury and death.

Riley is licensed in the states of Nevada and Utah. Throughout his career, Riley has successfully tried numerous personal injury, wrongful death, and insurance bad faith cases to verdict. He has argued before the Nevada Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court. Dozens of published and unpublished judicial decisions reflect his influence on the development of insurance and personal injury law.

Perhaps most tellingly, Riley frequently also serves as an expert witness in insurance bad faith cases for both plaintiffs’ and defense counsel — a distinction that speaks to the depth of his knowledge and the respect he commands across the legal and insurance community. At Cloward Trial Lawyers, Riley now brings that expertise to individuals and families who have been shortchanged by the insurance industry, ensuring that insurers and large corporations are held fully accountable for what they owe.

Riley was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of a World War II veteran who ran his own upholstery shop and a devoted mother who raised eight children — and who quietly waited until age 59 to share that she had earned her GED, having never graduated high school. Riley earned his undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Utah in 1991, followed by a law degree from Brigham Young University School of Law in 1994, graduating cum laude. After a year in San Francisco with a large accounting firm, he relocated to Las Vegas to practice law and has remained fully committed to the catastrophic injury and bad faith arena ever since.

Outside the office, Riley has called Las Vegas home for over 30 years, although he frequently visits and works in Utah where most of his adult daughters reside. He and his wife — a former high school teacher who volunteers with Clark County’s Trauma Intervention Program and is a licensed social worker — have raised four daughters together. Riley enjoys all things sports, anything ocean-related (surfing, boogie boarding, fishing, and sand sculptures), playing music, attending Broadway productions with his family, and is active in his church and broader community.

Since joining the firm in July 2023, Riley has taken a lead role in achieving life-changing results for his clients. Among recent examples, Riley obtained a $10,850,000 wrongful death settlement in a negligent security case and a $6,025,000 wrongful death settlement arising from a collision in which his client, traveling at freeway speeds, struck the rear of a slow-moving commercial truck. He has also secured $5,000,000 in a products liability case involving a traumatic brain injury and $5,000,000 for a freeway sideswipe accident resulting in multiple fractures. Additional recent recoveries include $3,090,000 for a trip-and-fall causing spinal injuries; $2,476,000 for a rear-end collision resulting in spinal injuries; $1,750,000 for a falling overhead fixture causing spinal injuries and a mild traumatic brain injury; and $1,446,000 for a case involving the sexual assault of a minor.

EDUCATION

• University of Utah, B.S. (1991)
• Brigham Young University School of Law (1994)