Jason Kandah brings significant litigation and financial-sector experience to HFM’s Trusts & Estates Practice and White-Collar & Regulatory Enforcement Defense Practice.
Jason Kandah is an experienced litigator in HFM’s Trusts & Estates Practice Group and co-leads the firm’s White-Collar & Regulatory Enforcement Defense Practice Group. He brings more than a decade of banking and financial-sector experience to his practice, and leverages his background as a former Vice President at JPMorgan Chase & Co. to represent clients in complex, high‑stakes litigation, including appeals, in both state and federal courts.
Mr. Kandah represents fiduciaries and beneficiaries in sophisticated Trusts and Estates disputes and has secured tens of millions of dollars in recoveries through trial-court wins and high-value settlements. His practice includes multi-trust and multi-entity disputes, breach of fiduciary duty claims, elder financial abuse, contested accountings, and will and trust contests involving significant real estate, closely held businesses, and investment portfolios. He draws on his financial-sector background to handle intensive asset tracing, sophisticated damages analysis, and coordination with tax, business, and real estate professionals in high-value probate and trust litigation.
In his White‑Collar & Regulatory Enforcement Defense Practice, Mr. Kandah routinely represents individuals and companies in white‑collar defense and regulatory enforcement matters, including actions before the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) and other governing state agencies, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). His prior licensing as a Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) and broker (Series 7, 66, Life, Accident, Health) provides critical industry insight and a strategic advantage in advising and defending on matters involving licensing, complaints, investigations, regulatory oversight, compliance, supervision, fiduciary duties, and enforcement actions for financial services professionals, RIAs, securities brokers, mortgage loan officers and brokers, lenders, and institutions in high‑stakes enforcement environments.
Mr. Kandah’s broader litigation background includes serving as National Monitoring Counsel overseeing 53 active cases and representing clients in products liability, employment and labor matters (including PAGA), environmental disputes, banking and finance, elder financial abuse, real estate and landlord‑tenant matters, medical malpractice, business and corporate disputes, and class actions.
He is admitted to practice in California and before the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Central, and Southern Districts of California.
Mr. Kandah earned his law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration—Finance from San Diego State University. Active in the San Diego legal community, Mr. Kandah was appointed to the San Diego County Bar Association’s Leadership Speaker Series, is involved in Probate Attorneys of San Diego and the Federal Bar Association’s San Diego Chapter, and volunteers as a mock trial judge at the University of San Diego School of Law. He has been recognized by the San Diego Business Journal as a 2025 “Leader of Influence in Law.”