First and foremost, Tim is a husband and father of three sons. He grew up in Orange County, attended Servite High School in Anaheim and, for his undergraduate years, UCSB. After graduating from USC Law School in 1975, he returned to Orange County to begin his career as a land use lawyer. Today, Tim is a partner in the Orange County office of Cox, Castle & Nicholson LLP, one of the nation’s leading real estate law firms.
Tim has been active throughout his career serving on the Boards of many professional, charitable, and community organizations. One of those organizations is the Orange County Youth Sports Foundation, which he joined in 1977 and of which he is a former Board President. For more than 50 years, the OCYSF has raised and distributed funds to help Orange County kids in need through sports activities.
Tim also is in his second tour as a Board member of HomeAid Orange County, having now served on the Board for more than 18 years. Since 1989, HomeAid OC has constructed 71 different housing projects for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Tim now serves as HomeAid’s 1st Vice-President and is a member of its Executive Committee.
Among the many other organizations in which he previously was active, Tim was a Founding Board Member and President of the Community Foundation of Orange and a member of the Boards of the Orange County Chapter of the Building Industry Association, the Orange County Forum, and the Foundation for the Great Park. He served both as President of the Servite Alumni Association and as a member of Servite’s President’s Advisory Board.
Professionally, Tim’s practice emphasizes CEQA, the Coastal Act, Development Agreements, and local planning. Geographically, his practice covers not only Southern California’s coastal counties and the Inland Empire, but also communities in central and northern California. During the nearly five decades of his practice, Tim’s insight has been shaped by work on some of California’s most challenging projects, experience in private land development, land use litigation in courtrooms throughout the State, and public service. Among his other activities, Tim has managed entitlement for The Irvine Company’s properties in Newport Beach, Anaheim, and Orange, served as a Planning Commission Chair and as a Governor’s appointee to the California Law Revision Commission, and taught land use as an Adjunct Law School Professor at Chapman University.
The highly respected Best Lawyers® publication, which is based solely on peer review, has recognized Tim every year since 2007, including naming him Orange County’s “Lawyer of the Year” for Land Use and Zoning Law in 2020. In 2012, Tim was named one of “California’s Top 30 Real Estate Lawyers” by California’s leading legal publication, The Daily Journal. Beyond his own skillset, Tim brings to his clients the considerable resources of Cox Castle’s deeply experienced statewide Land Use & Natural Resources practice group, a team honored by Best Lawyers® as the nation’s “Law Firm of the Year” for land use and zoning in 2015, 2018, 2020, and 2024.
